quattroguy wrote:
Maybe Admin on this forum should make posting pics easier. I don't need to start a hosting thing to post on any of the other forums I visit.
It's not that simple, there are many financial considerations and consequences involved.
This forum's software is outdated but it would be difficult and probably beyond Hobie's allotted forum budget to update it which would be a huge, expensive IT project.
In order to post photos directly to a forum, the forum owner must pay for the server space to host all of the photos. This can be very costly.
Most forums are paid for by advertising, which can be very annoying. Hobie does not do that here, rather they offer these forums as an excellent service to their customers, advertisement-free. This is rare nowadays. They even read and respond to our posts which is even rarer. Most companies appear to outright ignore forums about their products and rarely if ever respond to forum posts. This proves that Hobie cares about its customers and is willing to engage in product discussions. That alone is worth posting here.
Hobie appears to host this forum at its own expense, it would probably be difficult for anyone there to ROI making big, expensive changes to it when the money is better spent elsewhere and I don't see Hobie going to a commercial, advertisement-support forum.
It's no big deal and completely free to upload photos to Imgur or other photo hosting sites. Yes, it's a bit more work to do that than to post photos directly, but in doing so, you're actually supporting the forum and allowing Hobie to justify the expense of hosting and maintaining it.
Please don't let Facebook take over and own everything. These types of community forums are much better and convey information in a considerably more substantial manner than the blurb-type format that Facebook uses. For example, I could not effectively post my in-depth, detailed, multi-page motor reviews and user guides on Facebook.
In the long run, these forums serve the online community far greater than Facebook which is primarily a vast money-making machine attempting to control and profit from as much online activity as it can. I think we all realize that. I'm seeing far too many people migrating to Facebook at the expense of online forums everywhere. Such a shame.
You can retrieve over a decade's worth of highly valuable detailed information on Hobie products here. Try doing that with Facebook.