I thought people might want to know this, I only discovered this by accident..
Photobucket now charging $500 to direct link. They did not give anyone any warning either.
I'd say epic fail, and it seems to hit those that have a lot of pics that are direct linked (I had some but not that much). I'm currently switching to here and Imgur; it'll be another day or two before I've cleaned out my account. (10-15 years of pics takes a while to snag, you know?) I don't deal with people that do that, and I don't think anyone should..