[aslyfox]

For you pro Flickr users, here's what went on with the free one.
Limited to 1000 photos. Ok cool. Constant request to upgrade. Ads every 3 pictures looking at your own feed. Impossible to cull pictures when you can't look at them clicking back and forth. Imagine an eye doctor going is this better, look at this ad. Or is this better than what you saw before the ad.

not sure but if you don't have a certain level of membership here at the forums

you get to read ads

if that is true

what is the difference ?

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Last edited by aslyfox; 01-04-2020 at 08:35 AM.

[photoptimist]

Several years ago I was one of the "free loaders" on Flickr when Yahoo owned it but when the Smug Mug folks bought it I went to a Pro account and have been very satisfied. Its one of the best photo related resources in the world and it cost less for a year than the average automobile cost to fill the fuel tank once.

It amazes me that some people will gripe about paying for Pro storage and then spend a small fortune on five or six camera bags that mostly are redundant, but don't you dare cut off the free photo storage entitlement.

Indeed! The whole dot-com industry really shot itself in the foot by using venture capital money to give away products and services in the early years. The strategy of "get big fast at any cost and figure out how to make money later" created a lot of feelings of entitlement among users and anger when the sites were forced to charge money, slather on the ads, and curtail service.

I really don't see how they can reduce the cost of free accounts since they are paying for total capacity on the Amazon servers and not individual account storage. Maybe they can offer a reduced rate for less storage capacity say $14.95 per year up to a certain storage size then a couple more blocks of capacity for $20 more then to the unlimited accounts for say $49.95.

The cost of mass storage on AWS isn't very high although storing tens of billions of photos can't be cheap. Flickr's highest AWS costs probably comes from bandwidth and server rental. Roughly speaking, a photo with just 12 views (including views by the owner) costs more than 3-years of AWS storage. And if someone has a popular photo, bandwidth with hundreds or thousands of views, it adds up!

Thus, Flickr probably doesn't mind free-accounts where the user only has a few friends and family who view the images. But if the photographer is any good or posts their photo to a busy site, the cost of that free account skyrockets. Thus, Flickr really needs to limit the total number of views per month or year for free accounts as well as total storage.

[swanlefitte]

Pretty simple solution, upgrade to a Pro account!!

A simpler solution is ignoring my account.
As I said, I prefaced my post as being for pro users. It was to point out what you are paying to avoid. It might be worth a price increase to you if you are thinking about dropping out of the pro.

[Larrymc]

A bazzillion $$$$ worth of gear and $49.99/year to sort your images for personal and world wide viewing. Whats your point??

Very well put!!

[Larrymc]

A simpler solution is ignoring my account.
As I said, I prefaced my post as being for pro users. It was to point out what you are paying to avoid. It might be worth a price increase to you if you are thinking about dropping out of the pro.

Well, I foresee no going back to a "free" account as I'm now close to the storage limit for a free account and I enjoy having a resource like Flickr to share my photos.

[aslyfox]

A bazzillion $$$$ worth of gear and $49.99/year to sort your images for personal and world wide viewing. Whats your point??

similar to complaining about insurance cost of protecting your valuable property

[bobell69]

I've been using Flickr for many years and have uploaded a lot of images to the site. The main reason I use Flickr is because of the Flickr Community. It is the only sharing site that I know of that has so many different user groups that one can participate in. I have learned a lot from other photographers shooting the same equipment as well as facing the similar challenges that I come across when shooting jazz concerts. At this point I have no plans on leaving Flickr, but am certainly concerned about the financial challenges the site is facing.

[Larrymc]

Thus, Flickr probably doesn't mind free-accounts where the user only has a few friends and family who view the images. But if the photographer is any good or posts their photo to a busy site, the cost of that free account skyrockets. Thus, Flickr really needs to limit the total number of views per month or year for free accounts as well as total storage.

One of the biggest generators of bandwidth usage is the "Explore" group, I have seen some photos with well over 100,000 views generated by "Explore", my personal "Explore' high is 54,438 and there are countless other groups that generate huge amounts of bandwidth usage. Perhaps the "Free" users should be limited on group posting also. I agree, limiting views per month and total storage might very well be the best option for a "free" account. They need to find a way to keep "free" users on board but a bit more limited.

[reh321]

I wonder how many people are still paying for using Flickr.

If you look at the negative comments, apparently more people quit "Lightroom" when monthly subscriptions were announced than had been using it.

Right now this is by far the most active 'news' here - must not be any real news.

[swanlefitte]

It has to be difficult generating a business model around a user base with so many focuses. A simple model has unnecessary waste. Too complex turns people away. Now when your customers are the commodity you are selling, (views, comments, etc) you really have a tricky model. If you get rid of the free you lose those.

[RobA_Oz]

Indeed! The whole dot-com industry really shot itself in the foot by using venture capital money to give away products and services in the early years. The strategy of "get big fast at any cost and figure out how to make money later" created a lot of feelings of entitlement among users and anger when the sites were forced to charge money, slather on the ads, and curtail service.

The cost of mass storage on AWS isn't very high although storing tens of billions of photos can't be cheap. Flickr's highest AWS costs probably comes from bandwidth and server rental. Roughly speaking, a photo with just 12 views (including views by the owner) costs more than 3-years of AWS storage. And if someone has a popular photo, bandwidth with hundreds or thousands of views, it adds up!

Thus, Flickr probably doesn't mind free-accounts where the user only has a few friends and family who view the images. But if the photographer is any good or posts their photo to a busy site, the cost of that free account skyrockets. Thus, Flickr really needs to limit the total number of views per month or year for free accounts as well as total storage.

I think that's a very good summary of the situation background.

Personally, I had a free account with Flickr for about ten years, under the previous regime, so thinking about those things wasn't a productive use of my time. When Smugmug took over from Yahoo, they were at pains to assure users that they were serious about maintaining Flickr as a service, but making it viable. Yahoo had lost interest in the last year or so of their tenure, so Smugmug's attempts to keep it going have been appreciated, especially by those who upgraded to a Pro account. I'd give them good marks for the work they've done so far, so I've no intention of looking elsewhere, at least for now.

[i_trax]

A bazzillion $$$$ worth of gear and $49.99/year to sort your images for personal and world wide viewing. Whats your point??

I am not complaining , was just stating the fact.
Happy to pay US$99.98 for 2 year subscription,
it is AU$ 144.32

[Rondec]

If you look at the negative comments, apparently more people quit "Lightroom" when monthly subscriptions were announced than had been using it.

Right now this is by far the most active 'news' here - must not be any real news.

I think the Lightroom situation was a bit different. I bought and still use Lightroom 6. And I would usually upgrade my Lightroom every 3 to 4 years, which as I recall was usually about 120 dollars for an upgrade. I just didn't really see paying a monthly fee forever to use software -- particularly when an upgrade often didn't really have that much improvement over the previous iteration of the software. That said, Adobe has made a killing with the Lightroom CC and the majority of people did move to the monthly subscription, even though they complained mightily about it.

On the other hand, Flickr offers two things for 50 dollars a year. A lot of storage (if you get 1 TB of storage on Amazon Drive you will pay 60 dollars a year) and sharing options, both on Flickr and linking to other sites like Pentax Forums. There is no other place that offers anything similar. Photobucket that I started with is terrible now. I'm not saying that people will pay to use Flickr. I'm guessing many will just create new, free accounts every time they fill up an old account, but I do think the value there is reasonable.

For some reason, there is a feeling that stuff on the internet should be free, but as time goes by, there is less free stuff out there and even the "free" things are monetized through the use of advertising.

[bladerunner6]

I still see the sale price of $3.12 per month billed annually.

[pentaxic]

I am not complaining , was just stating the fact.
Happy to pay US$99.98 for 2 year subscription,
it is AU$ 144.32

I think that if they are in such financial shape they should reduce the freebees to 200 so they still get a taste but they would increase their revenue substantially and not lose any current pros with increased fees that seem necessary.