Random 60: What to do about Flickr? | Favorite on Viddler.
I’ve been a Flickr member since mid-summer 2004. I’ve been a Flickr Pro member for nearly as long. Yet, now that my Pro account has expired, I’m wondering if I will renew my subscription.
Why? I think Flickr is great. The Flickr team is fantastic. Nearly everything they build is superb. But with Yahoo! on the rocks (being the parent-company for Flickr now) I’m just not all that eager to fork over more money to a company that could, potentially, fall into some hard times this year.
What do you think I should do?
Flickr Pro is a great service. It’s worth every penny to me. Why is it bad that Yahoo owns it? Do you expect it to be free because Yahoo is in the mix?
If it’s valuable to you, you shouldn’t think twice about renewing. If on the other hand, Flickr Pro is not that valuable to you anymore then don’t renew. I don’t think it should have anything to do with the fact that Yahoo owns the service but rather if it’s something you get value out of.
(i personally do, I have been using it probably for the same time period you have and i have thousands of photos, i use it as photo backup and i regularly upload hundreds of photos that are completely private. I just love having my photos there for me to play with – Specially in times where i am not that happy with iphoto anymore).
I have nothing against Yahoo! really. But we all know there is a chance that Yahoo! won’t survive. Or, worse in my opinion, may get bought from Microsoft. I don’t want to pay for something that will disappear or be ruined.
In that case, wouldn’t paying for flickr be a good thing? If the service is making money it’s less likely that it’ll be shut down in case of a Yahoo! sell out.
I have been a Flickr Pro user for almost a year now and I absolutely love it. Even with Yahoo! sort of on the rocks, I think $25 is such a minimal investment for what you get, and I can’t see Flickr just pulling the rug out from underneath us anytime soon.
Same price to go out for one meal, and you’re starting a diet out anyway right? So instead of going out stay in for dinner and keep on using Flickr.
What an excellent way to think about this! Instead of going out to eat one night, just get a Flickr account. Not a huge investment.
Excellent point and suggestion.
I love my flickr account too. I don’t think Yahoo will go under. I think they just need to start being more selective and make better choices. I use Flickr and Del.icio.us from Yahoo. I pay for a Flickr Pro account and even pay for my Yahoo Mail Plus account. Heck, I would pay for my Del.icio.us account too if they offered awesome features to go with it. I think if more people had the attitude to pay for a pro account because they liked the service I don’t think there would be an issue. But we live in a society where people think every thing should be free. If I truly like a service, I will pay for it.
Corey: Let me be clear. I do not think Flickr should be free. Flickr Pro is, as I said in the video, worth every penny. But, will Flickr be around a year from now? I don’t know. I think it has the chance to be sold off by Yahoo!.
We’ll see. But I think I’m leaning towards renewing my Pro account.
I’ve been using Flickr for a long time. I can’t find where it tells me how long, but it was befroe Yahoo! bought them.
I’ve had a Flickr Pro account for over 2 years and I enjoy every moment of it. Everything is highly organised, and thus if I’m searching for a photo of mine I will search Flickr (my local copies are hardly as organised; no local tagging).
I haven’t heard anything about Yahoo!’s ‘state’ right now, but my only news source is Twitter (nothing has appeared on there of late).
That said, I was a little scared when Microsoft wanted to buy Yahoo!. What will happen to my lovely Flickr?
As long as I’m paying for it I know my photos are safe.
There’s three services I’ve invested too much in to lose: Flickr, Viddler, and Twitter.
I agree with you. Flickr is great. I’m leaning towards renewing!
Colin, you raise a fantastic point! I never really thought about it until this post. It may be smarter just to get a semi-slick PHP Gallery installed and migrate everything over to a hosted platform (maybe not Dreamhost :p) and use S3 to host all of the large images?
I hate to not keep Flickr going (as my subscription is up in a month), but what does one do?
Thoughts?
I am not sure how large your photo library is Jason… but I know that S3 has reasonable pricing. You may end up paying more than $24 a year though.
I’ve been using flickr since the end of 2005 and went pro as soon as I crossed the 200 photo threshold.
I tend to view my pro account payment as support to Flickr more than to Yahoo. It’s a very thin line to draw, I know.
Selling off Flickr might be a difficult call for Yahoo. It’s a strong revenue stream and the community would revolt in the case of a sale to the wrong entity. (read Microsoft)
I have to believe that if Yahoo tanks, the Flickr community would rise to the occasion to save the site we all love. Look at what happened with JPG Magazine.
Ultimately, with a minimal investment, you are lending your support to a product, company, community that you love.
Excellent points!
Click to play this video.
Lets be clear though Danny. Flickr is actually smaller than a lot of other photo sharing sites. They’ve grown a lot since Yahoo! Photos switched over to Flickr. But, other sites are out there that are much larger and make a lot more money. (24 dollar pro accounts doesn’t make Flickr a ton of money)
I’ve just let my Pro account lapse. I don’t have any concerns about Yahoo! going out of business and largely, I have loved being an active Flickr user for nearly 5 years – nearly all as a Pro account holder. I also greatly appreciate that Flickr has an active community of photographers who make it a lively and creative place to be. I probably log into Flickr at least 5 times a day. So $25 is well worth the price. BUT… since Yahoo! has taken over, it is more of a photo community site and less of a photographers’ community site. There is a difference.
Yahoo! is also very squeamish about nudity. It’s not the only photography I like. There is no end of porn available on the net, but artistic nudes are a whole other thing. Not that Flickr gets the difference.
I don’t see Flickr as a photographers’ site anymore. Too many of the group discussions are the same trolling comments or “how should I spend $2,000?” type questions. Frankly, that bores me.
I know that it’s the people who make it what it is, but many of Flickr’s more recent policies have started to drive away some of the best photographers from Flickr.
This is not a trolling comment. I’m no suggesting there are better alternatives out there – I certainly haven’t found any. But I am looking and I am not renewing my Pro account.
I will continue to log into Flickr on a regular basis, but I won’t be paying for them to host any more than 200 of my photos.