For PhotoBucket, it wasn’t the storage space that you were going to be paying for, it was the ability to link your photos hosted on their site, to 3rd party sites, like BLF. My pictures are still over on PB and I’ve not been asked to pay a dime.
There’s even an add-on in Google Chrome, that ‘has’ allowed pictures to be linked to/posted in 3rd party sites, without subscription, so I don’t know what’s up with that?
Test pic from PB:

Chris