A Flickr of excitement

I have been using Flickr for five years and I like it. I have a Pro account which means I have unlimited uploads and storage, and no advertisements. For this I pay $24.95 and consider it money well spent.

Today Yahoo, the owner of Flickr, announced a new arrangement which kicks Pro account holders in the balls by eliminating their accounts once their current subscription has expired. Instead, they are offering a free account (good) with advertisements (bad) and a storage limit of 1TB (bad, although probably irrelevant to most).

If you really want to do without the advertisements you can give Flickr $49.95 a year (no thank you), and if you have been loading hours of video, can you can double your storage to 2TB for a mere $499.95 a year (yikes!).

I would rather carry on paying what I did for what I received, but I suppose I will just have to get used to paying nothing and being bombarded with adverts. What pisses me off is not being given a choice after being a paying customer for five years.

The other dubious “enhancement” is a brand new look to the site. Maybe OK for those with fast internet (like all the managers at Yahoo); but bit of a paint-drying experience on my screen and I would prefer the old, more textual look. Still, I suppose I will get used to it.

But for anyone considering whereabouts to stick their photos, Flickr is a good service with a vibrant (although currently angry) community. My photostream is here.

Comments 🔗

2013-05-21 | robin says

The new look panders to the lowest-common-denominator ADD crowd. When I look at a photo I prefer some space around it. The Flickr “designers” apparently never learned about negative space in school, or wherever they picked up their HTML chops.

And yes, it sucks to be “rewarded” for being a paying customer by having the benefits taken away or the fee doubled.

They are hoping for people to be scared of leaving due to lock-in. But I am considering pulling my account and letting the 6000 images – and the hundreds of links to them across the web – simply succumb to bit rot.

2013-05-21 | Spike says

Any suggestions for an alternative?

2013-05-21 | Barry says

Am I missing something here? 1TB storage is free (with ads). 2TB costs you $499.95 (without ads?). So why not open a second (free with ads) account and save $499.95? Even a third if you run amok with the video?

2013-05-21 | Spike says

The $500 option includes ads….

Not really thought through is it?

2013-05-21 | Barry says

Not thought through at all. I’m baffled how they can try to sell something for $500 when the same thing is available free if someone opens two accounts. Doesn’t take a lot of brainpower to work out that loophole.

2013-05-21 | Clive says

Is it me, or is the current model of internet business a bit like the drug-dealer model? Give away free merchandise until you have people hooked, then turn around and charge them extortionate amounts of money. Squeeze ’em until the pips squeak…

There’s been some interesting discussion lately on Adobe’s decision to go to a subscription-only model for the latest release of Photoshop. Cue the rants, raves (and raving loonies) over on dpreview.com, and others. Yet these people seem to have lost sight of the fact that the Internet is the biggest community, the biggest “organising utility” the world has ever seen. Want to stop Adobe from screwing around with this stupidity? Simple. Organize an effective boycott. Keep it clean and keep it legal. Be respectful. But just stop buying their stuff. Faced with falling profits and corporate suicide, they would turn round. The alternative, whining about it whilst continuing to pay them, is going to have them laughing all the way to the bank.

Ah, that’s better…

:)

2013-05-22 | Andrew says

http://connect.dpreview.com/post/2244688754/flickr-pro-account-changes Details were initially fuzzy about what would happen to Pro users, and a backlash ensued as it appeared this option was disappearing entirely, but Flickr now says these customers can renew their unlimited storage plan for $25 annually. That’s an amazing deal for those “grandfathered in”: if you’re lucky enough to be one of them, just be sure to sign up for a recurring Pro subscription.

Shame about that ungodly sharpening algorithm they use for downsized images though….makes every decent photo look oversharpened when used on blogs…

2013-05-24 | Spike says

So do I pay $25 for no ads and no upper limit which I probably would never reach anyway…? Decisions, decisions.

2013-05-24 | genuinej says

“Up to you”. Sound familiar?

2013-05-25 | Billy says

Having introduced you to Flickr some years ago, please accept my apologies, haha, not.

Over the intervening years, Flickr stayed just about the same in a market that has grown out of sight while others, not least Facebook, Apple, Picasso and Instagram came, saw and conquered on turf that, absent crap management, should have been Flickr’s.

My own first blog musings were on something called Geo Cities, another Yahoo property, and another clear leader at the time. Once again shite management management turned it into an irrelevance and eventually shut up shop. Hilarious that they have now bought Tumblr, another vowel challenged property.

So while I have sympathy for the changes you and others abhor, I can hardly do anything but cheer the appointment of a Yahoo CEO who is going to change and fight and generally shake things up in an attempt to bring Yahoo back as a serious player.

I particularly liked her move to make all her idle employees check in to the office every day rather than play Farmville at home:-)