4 ms·

I have received the email that my photobucket account is going to be deleted, so I've logged in after who knows how many years and got offered the same thing, t

I have received the email that my photobucket account is going to be deleted, so I've logged in after who knows how many years and got offered the same thing, to subscribe. Instead I've went to close the account and in the process (or somewhere else, don't remember exactly) there was an option to first download all the data which I've used and got the images back (there were just a few as I haven't used the service really), then I've closed the account. There was no need to subscribe.

lutr 4mo ago
Yeah, makes sense. I think it's just a little honeypot for fools that don't do their research. 1 prompt to Claude would have saved me the pain, probably. ("Research" isn't even that hard nowadays!)
- trwhite 4mo ago
  Or maybe... you know... read
  - uberex 4mo ago
    the whole part about dark patterns is to be technically not doing the asshole thing while getting most people to fall for it.
  - lutr 4mo ago
    It's true, doing things carefully can avoid a ton of problems in life. I guess I wasn't expecting to have to use my full attention for a little "side mission". And I'd already made peace with losing those $5. "It's time to relive them for just $5" didn't really sound like you can get them back, in my defense.
root-parent 4mo ago
I predict that in the future, when you cancel an LLM subscription, they will threaten that unless you pay, to fully delete your anonymized chats, they will be public as paid training data. You know ...that is how we managed to offer you such a cheap subscription...
- junior44660 4mo ago
  I always pose fundamentalist questions and hypotheticals to the LLM to poison such training data.
  - cwmoore 4mo ago
    Now you can place a bet on how well that approach will work out in ten years.
  - RobRivera 4mo ago
    I have loads of requests to 'Play Despacito' across agents all over the blogosphere
    - bikson 4mo ago
      Calm down Satan.
  - dakolli 4mo ago
    Also, press thumbs down when a response is good and thumbs up when a response is bad. Don't do free labor for them.
  - yifanl 4mo ago
    I just ask it to spellcheck the Webster dictionary about 50 times an hour.
- anal_reactor 4mo ago
  I was doing a Udemy course about AI and there was a section where I had to do some processing on randomly scraped tweets and the random tweet that the machine chose to display as an example of something was from a gay porn star and about fisting.
  - jpfromlondon 4mo ago
    it obviously knew your hn username
Uncle_Brumpus 4mo ago
This is the real tip. Thank you. I had gone through a whole process probably 2 years ago now to "recover" my account that I lost the original email and forgot the password. I eventually got into the account before they paywalled it, and procrastinated downloading everything because I couldn't find a good way to do it in bulk. Interestingly, you can request the download, and then just NOT delete your account, which is what I plan on doing out of spite. My 81MB of ~600 cringe avatar edits from Gaiaonline circa 2007 will forever take up that tiny space on their servers as they hope and pray that one day I might toss them $5.
MisterTea 4mo ago
I did the same thing. I contacted support via email who told me to go through the deletion process and near the end, there would be an option to save your photos free of charge. I downloaded my photos, looked through them, then deleted the account.
the_af 4mo ago
> there was an option to first download all the data which I've used and got the images back (there were just a few as I haven't used the service really), then I've closed the account. There was no need to subscribe. Does Photobucket make it clear that this is an option, or did you discover it by accident? I don't get that sense from TFA. If it was unclear, this is still a shitty dark pattern. The wording implies that in order to "relive" your images you must subscribe...
- Uncle_Brumpus 4mo ago
  I would have had no idea if it weren't for this post. It isn't displayed or acknowledged ANYWHERE on any page, through 3 or 4 pages of "Are you SURE you want to delete your account? You could pay us $5 per month in a different way to pay for 1TB of 'cold storage' instead? How does that sound?" Only once you get to the final page of account deletion does it give you a single link that says "Request data download" or something.
philo23 4mo ago
[dead]
cj 4mo ago
Yes. Photobucket emailed many warnings over the course of multiples months saying "Your account will be deleted in X days" with a prompt to subscribe to keep your account. At the time they were sending the emails, you could still login and download your photos (that's what I did). It was all very transparent. The fact that the author missed these emails isn't really photobucket's fault, IMO. (But not giving a preview of the account you're reclaiming isn't a good UX obviously, not going to defend that!)
- lutr 4mo ago
  Yes, I'm at fault here with missing the e-mails. The Photobucket account was registered using an old e-mail address that I was using as a kid. I happened to find the account by accident, by scrolling through my password manager. So these are the unfortunate circumstances. This post basically shows what's it like to be a living and breathing edge-case (missed e-mails & no images in your account). This actually made me think about the edge-cases I must have shipped at work and how they're affecting people.
vitally3643 4mo ago
Photobucket has been sending me an email every few months that my account is due to be deleted. It's been at least two or three years. I'd love them to delete my account because there's nothing in it, but apparently it's just an outright scam
- xahrepap 4mo ago
  yeah, i ignored them for years just to see how long they'd play their little game. I finally got sick of it, paid them for a month, downloaded everything, and then canceled/closed the account. Didn't know there was the free option... but oh well. Glad to be rid of them. So tired of the games everyone plays to squeeze $5 out of someone.

lutr 4mo ago

Yeah, makes sense. I think it's just a little honeypot for fools that don't do their research. 1 prompt to Claude would have saved me the pain, probably. ("Research" isn't even that hard nowadays!)

trwhite 4mo ago
Or maybe... you know... read
- uberex 4mo ago
  the whole part about dark patterns is to be technically not doing the asshole thing while getting most people to fall for it.
- lutr 4mo ago
  It's true, doing things carefully can avoid a ton of problems in life. I guess I wasn't expecting to have to use my full attention for a little "side mission". And I'd already made peace with losing those $5. "It's time to relive them for just $5" didn't really sound like you can get them back, in my defense.

root-parent 4mo ago

I predict that in the future, when you cancel an LLM subscription, they will threaten that unless you pay, to fully delete your anonymized chats, they will be public as paid training data. You know ...that is how we managed to offer you such a cheap subscription...

junior44660 4mo ago
I always pose fundamentalist questions and hypotheticals to the LLM to poison such training data.
- cwmoore 4mo ago
  Now you can place a bet on how well that approach will work out in ten years.
- RobRivera 4mo ago
  I have loads of requests to 'Play Despacito' across agents all over the blogosphere
  - bikson 4mo ago
    Calm down Satan.
- dakolli 4mo ago
  Also, press thumbs down when a response is good and thumbs up when a response is bad. Don't do free labor for them.
- yifanl 4mo ago
  I just ask it to spellcheck the Webster dictionary about 50 times an hour.
anal_reactor 4mo ago
I was doing a Udemy course about AI and there was a section where I had to do some processing on randomly scraped tweets and the random tweet that the machine chose to display as an example of something was from a gay porn star and about fisting.
- jpfromlondon 4mo ago
  it obviously knew your hn username

Uncle_Brumpus 4mo ago

This is the real tip. Thank you. I had gone through a whole process probably 2 years ago now to "recover" my account that I lost the original email and forgot the password. I eventually got into the account before they paywalled it, and procrastinated downloading everything because I couldn't find a good way to do it in bulk. Interestingly, you can request the download, and then just NOT delete your account, which is what I plan on doing out of spite. My 81MB of ~600 cringe avatar edits from Gaiaonline circa 2007 will forever take up that tiny space on their servers as they hope and pray that one day I might toss them $5.

MisterTea 4mo ago

I did the same thing. I contacted support via email who told me to go through the deletion process and near the end, there would be an option to save your photos free of charge. I downloaded my photos, looked through them, then deleted the account.

the_af 4mo ago

> there was an option to first download all the data which I've used and got the images back (there were just a few as I haven't used the service really), then I've closed the account. There was no need to subscribe. Does Photobucket make it clear that this is an option, or did you discover it by accident? I don't get that sense from TFA. If it was unclear, this is still a shitty dark pattern. The wording implies that in order to "relive" your images you must subscribe...

Uncle_Brumpus 4mo ago
I would have had no idea if it weren't for this post. It isn't displayed or acknowledged ANYWHERE on any page, through 3 or 4 pages of "Are you SURE you want to delete your account? You could pay us $5 per month in a different way to pay for 1TB of 'cold storage' instead? How does that sound?" Only once you get to the final page of account deletion does it give you a single link that says "Request data download" or something.

philo23 4mo ago

[dead]

cj 4mo ago

Yes. Photobucket emailed many warnings over the course of multiples months saying "Your account will be deleted in X days" with a prompt to subscribe to keep your account. At the time they were sending the emails, you could still login and download your photos (that's what I did). It was all very transparent. The fact that the author missed these emails isn't really photobucket's fault, IMO. (But not giving a preview of the account you're reclaiming isn't a good UX obviously, not going to defend that!)

lutr 4mo ago
Yes, I'm at fault here with missing the e-mails. The Photobucket account was registered using an old e-mail address that I was using as a kid. I happened to find the account by accident, by scrolling through my password manager. So these are the unfortunate circumstances. This post basically shows what's it like to be a living and breathing edge-case (missed e-mails & no images in your account). This actually made me think about the edge-cases I must have shipped at work and how they're affecting people.

vitally3643 4mo ago

Photobucket has been sending me an email every few months that my account is due to be deleted. It's been at least two or three years. I'd love them to delete my account because there's nothing in it, but apparently it's just an outright scam

xahrepap 4mo ago
yeah, i ignored them for years just to see how long they'd play their little game. I finally got sick of it, paid them for a month, downloaded everything, and then canceled/closed the account. Didn't know there was the free option... but oh well. Glad to be rid of them. So tired of the games everyone plays to squeeze $5 out of someone.