I feel the same way. Somehow, although all the pictures I have shared (up until yesterday, when I heard about the Photobucket thing) have been shared via Photobucket and I have a free account, I can still see all my photos on here. However, I have seen that other users' pictures have disappeared and I expect that will soon happen to mine, too.
I did contemplate paying for Photobucket, because I assumed it would only be a few quid a year to be able to share images. To my horror, I discovered it is $399.99!!!!! I am beyond disbelief. So, I'm now directly embedding my photos via the forum as I recently learnt how to do this (and also found an app to resize them first). Still, I am very annoyed and upset.
By the way, if anyone is having trouble working out how to embed photos directly on the forum, rather than via an image hosting website such as Photobucket, I made a guide:
http://www.hamstercentral.com/commun...ed-photos.html