A plea from the CEO of Flickr to "Keep the Dream Alive..."

[Tronhard]

In a world where the subscriber is also the product (for mining information, for example) Flickr is starting to show signs of distress one might conclude from an open letter from it CEO:
https://www.dpreview.com/news/787652...kr-dream-alive

I am not a user, and I'm not convinced this would make me rush to become a member.

[DanK]

Trev,

I think of this differently. Nothing is free, and "free" stuff on the internet usually entails advertising, sale of personal information, or both. Smugmug's model has always been that you pay for the service directly, which is one of many reasons I have been a Smugmug user for years. My understanding, which may be wrong, is that when Smugmug took over Flickr, they tried to figure out a model in which paid users of the pro service would carry the costs of other users who pay nothing. The CEO apparently has a reputation for being frank, so I take this as a sign that this model is failing and that if they can't make the service self-sustaining, they'll drop it. They aren't a huge corporation with deep pockets, so they won't be able to keep it afloat long if it loses money.

Dan

[Rufus]

I had to have an account on Flickr specifically to share images with other particpiants during an online course. I have never used it otherwise. For me its association with Yahoo! was sufficient reason not to use it.

[Shadowman]

I was recently reminiscing about the past email/internet services (free) we were fond of a few decades ago, I started out using NetZero, AltaVista, and a few others as they provided free services for awhile. Eventually, they started charging or limited the amount of data you could use on a monthly basis, I vowed I'd hold out for as long as possible before finally signing up for the lovely AOL internet service. Many of the file sharing, cloud services are looking for ways to keep afloat, even Wikipedia is constantly asking for donations for a free service we've relied on for years, eventually most of the favored services are going to bought out by the bigger players; so unless a new digital revolution takes place; we'll eventually have to succumb to pay for play services.

[Tronhard]

Certainly I understand (and have done so for a long time) the significance in modelling for "free" services and those for which you pay. My comment was that in being honest and frank (and I applaud him for this), in part it undermines the confidence of those whom they want to sign up to pay for the service. In their terms and conditions it clearly states that if you pay and you no longer use the service then you still are committed for the current billing cycle. Their deal is for a year's subscription for the Pro version, thus subscribers want confidence that their images will be hosted for at least that period. So the question was asked by DPR if a termination of service from the supplier's end would result in a refund for the unused subscription. Experience and common sense suggest not, but apparently no response has been made to that question at the time of writing. Hence my comment that that in itself might hold back potential subscribers.

I might add that paying for a service does not apparently protect subscribers from being the product. Our local version of Craigslist (trademe) is a service for which one pays to list and pay again when the item is sold on a sliding scale. Other services are by subscription. Recently they were purchased by a UK investor company and have announced that they will sell subscribers' details and browsing habits to "interested parties". The only option is to quit the service - which has a stranglehold on the NZ buy/sell market.

[billtils]

For me its association with Yahoo! was sufficient reason not to use it.

They dumped Yahoo like the proverbial sack of hot potatoes when SmugMug took over.

[Manfred M]

I've been a premium member of Flickr for many years (2010) and have not had any issues. All my images are backed up in at least 3 places, so I am not at all concerned if something happens with Flickr; there are other options.

I primarily use it to post images here at CiC and have been looking at doing my own website for some time and perhaps I will migrate in that direction....

[DanK]

I primarily use it to post images here at CiC and have been looking at doing my own website for some time and perhaps I will migrate in that direction....

I still have a flickr account, but I largely abandoned it after I set up my own website on Smugmug. Posting here from Smugmug is trivially easy.

[rpcrowe]

I also use smugmug.com and enjoy it very much. It makes posting on CiC very easy. Additionally, since I have access to my smugmug account on my smartphone, I can often show my images to friends and acquaintances. To me, it is worth the price that I pay...
I had/have a flickr account which I only used to share images with another rescue group which used flickr as their main photo sharing account. I have seldom used it otherwise.
There is no such thing as a "Free Lunch"... Sites and programs advertised as being free generate cash to support themselves through several different ways. Most common is the posting of advertisements. However, I have often found that downloading a "free program" puts my computer at risk for malware...