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If past history is any guide, you can likely expect any photo hosting site to eventually follow suit with dropping the *free* aspect of external linking to photos hosted with them. After all, they are paying all the bandwidth charges associated with the hosting, and their perspective is likely that with such a function, viewers of those images aren't even coming to their site to hopefully get snagged by an advertiser or two, which is what would be paying all of their bills.
MANY sites exist solely on the income coming from such things as Google ads, and as a result, are able to offer *free* services just to get the traffic needed for those ads to reach enough eyes. Of course, in a lot of cases, that just won't be enough to keep the bills paid, so they have to decide to either fold up shop, or try to earn revenue from the site in another manner.
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