For photobucket, the images are still there, they're not visible unless the poster is paying for them, but there are browser extension that allows to bypass that (I'm using one called Photobucket Hotlink Fix on Chrome). Though that's from what I remember, I haven't checked if it's still working or if things have changed on photobucket's side of things

At least for imgur it should be possible for forum operators (and users, if they use some browser to redirect URLs) to search and replace old imgur links with links to the Wayback Machine as the Archive Team is saving many of the files.

Some info on this Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Using_the_Wayback_Machine

Random example: https://i.imgur.com/t8UbDz1.jpeg can be redirected to https://web.archive.org/web/202304id_/https://i.imgur.com/t8...

Looking at the URL:

https://web.archive.org/web/

- The base domain for the Wayback Machine.

202304id_/

- 202304: the year and month the archive was done (2023, 04). It will redirect you to the copy closest to that date instead of showing the latest, which might be a good backup or not (eg: a 404 page). - id_: shows the file as it was saved, no wayback machine toolbar, can be hotlinked.

For pages, instead of "id_", either don't use it and you'll get a page with the toolbar or use "if_" as it corrects the path to css/js/etc without displaying the toolbar.

Unless said forums serve pornography, only thing they have to do is create an imgur account and reupload to that account and swap the id of the image. This is easily scripted.

But more viable option is to pay for the hosting of the image, either by hosting the files directly or by using a storage solution. A 6$/TB s3 storage from Wasabi seems like a good start.