Dumb way to spend money

[Nick Parkin]

I use one of those Online services to share my photos with friends & get prints. They have one service (look at the description below) which had me scratching my head & wondering "why would anyone want to do that?". :rolleyes:

If I am wrong please explain why this is a useful service someone wants to pay for, but the only way I can interpret it is that I upload my photos, invite my friends to look at them, & then if they want they can pay 30p/file to download them. :eek: Why wouldn't I just e-mail them? :D

HI-RES PRICES

1-10 photos £ 0.30 ea.
11-24 photos £ 0.25 ea.
25+ photos £ 0.20 ea.

A hi-res photo is a digital .jpg file that can be downloaded to your computer. You can use it to:

make a screensaver

create desktop wallpaper

place a photo on your personal website

and much more...

Click the 'buy hi-res photos' button below to continue.
note: a hi-res photo is a digital file. It is not a photographic print. Click below to order prints.

[Judy G. Russell]

Oh, my... Now that's a new one! I've seen lots of services that let you buy prints -- but one that lets you buy the same image that can be emailed?

"There's a sucker born every minute..."

[davidh]

Perhaps they assume that anybody who uploaded photos was mainly interested in prints in the first place, and that therefore the pictures were of sufficient interest to one's associates that they would be willing to pay to download or would also order prints anyway?

http://www.yousendit.com has a similar *free* service to facilitate emailing large photos.

Some ISP's still have a 10MB limit on POP3 mailbox size and therefore emailing just a couple large hi-res photos from newer digital cameras could overflow the mailbox. YOUSENDIT is a free "workaround" for this problem. The photos are uploaded to their server and a link to the file(s) sent by email to one's correspondents. The file(s) are available for a limited number of downloads for a limited period (e.g. 7 days).

David H.

[Judy G. Russell]

Now THAT makes a lot of sense... and I'm glad to know about it since I've hit that same overflow problem once or twice myself.

[Nick Parkin]

This was an add on to the normal print ordering service. Now I think from the wording about wallpaper & screensavers that the idea is to get fools to part with their money, but I can see how it would be useful for getting around mailbox problems.

Another tip for those big files - transfer them directly using an IM. I once transfered a 600M film like that. Of course it took over a day, & it's getting to the level where you may as well burn a CD & pop in the snail.

[Judy G. Russell]

Another tip for those big files - transfer them directly using an IM. I once transfered a 600M film like that.
Interesting! I wouldn't have thought of that.