Flickr in 2024: Dead or Alive?

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What are people's thoughts on using Flickr in 2024? The last time I used it was back in 2022 and it seemed mostly dead then. None of my photos got any views or likes and it was impossible to build any following, so I abandoned it and went to Instagram.

Instagram has been pretty good for getting my photos in front of eyes but unfortunately it's just not a photography app at all. It's obsessed with video.

Flickr seems great for hosting a portfolio of high quality images but I do worry about the future of that site. How long will it last?
 
Flickr and Instagram are different things. Flickr is just photo storage, hosting etc that happens to be publicly viewable to me. I do post stuff there and it does get views but that's a byproduct, it's more for backup purposes and posting on here. It pre-dates Instagram and Facebook, it's not a social network as such, I've been on there for 16 years on and off, so my whole photography journey is hosted there really. It

Instagram was amazing for building a following and getting your work in front of people until they decided to compete with TikTok and focus on video. I used to post on Instagram almost daily, now it's once a month if that. There's no point posting on a site like that when barely anybody sees your work because the algorithm buries it, so I don't bother anything like as much as I used to. There isn't really anything that is like Instagram used to be. Vero had a spike in interest a couple of years ago but that's a ghost town again now.
 
RichardC27 said:
Flickr and Instagram are different things. Flickr is just photo storage, hosting etc that happens to be publicly viewable to me. I do post stuff there and it does get views but that's a byproduct, it's more for backup purposes and posting on here. It pre-dates Instagram and Facebook, it's not a social network as such, I've been on there for 16 years on and off, so my whole photography journey is hosted there really. It

Instagram was amazing for building a following and getting your work in front of people until they decided to compete with TikTok and focus on video. I used to post on Instagram almost daily, now it's once a month if that. There's no point posting on a site like that when barely anybody sees your work because the algorithm buries it, so I don't bother anything like as much as I used to. There isn't really anything that is like Instagram used to be. Vero had a spike in interest a couple of years ago but that's a ghost town again now.
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I think the problem for Flickr, is that is how people see it. It was designed to be a social network, in the days before social networks.

But in this age of Instagram trying to be TikTok, and seemingly a new photography based social network popping up every few weeks, then vanishing, one of my new years resolutions is to engage with the social side of Flickr, as it is the original photography based social network, and I am already paying for it (mainly to back up my images and/or share them on here).
 
Eucris said:
Going off at a slight tangent, why do people need "followers", why do people need "likes"?
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I don't. What I do want to do is sell some of my images and maybe get work as an accredited motorsport photographer, so Instagram was a great platform for getting work out there since there are so many teams and drivers on there.
Craikeybaby said:
I think the problem for Flickr, is that is how people see it. It was designed to be a social network, in the days before social networks.

But in this age of Instagram trying to be TikTok, and seemingly a new photography based social network popping up every few weeks, then vanishing, one of my new years resolutions is to engage with the social side of Flickr, as it is the original photography based social network, and I am already paying for it (mainly to back up my images and/or share them on here).
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That's true, I tend to just post my images there and then never look at them again these days. I used to spend loads of time on Flickr, in the days before Facebook and Instagram.
 
I like Flickr. I use it almost daily, as a place to keep a well annotated record of my 'journey' in film photography. I don't think there's anything else like it ATM.

There are a few film photography groups I follow on there that are well curated and full of interesting content. Many people quite clearly still see it as a great option.

I don't particularly care about community and engagement though, as I usually still use forums for the film photography community aspect and technical discussions, and I don't need engagement as I'm only an amateur and I use Flickr as a personal record.

One thing I quite like about it is that content is presented to me chronologically, and only from users and groups I've chosen to follow. Nothing is rehashed by algorithms, to generate advertising revenue or stronger engagement, for instance. Beautifully "old fashioned" social media.
 
gramps said:
Flickr is great for hosting photos and linking to show here on the forum.
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That's all I use it for, I dropped flickr pro when the price started climbing.
And to those that say its "only the price of a daily coffee"
I don't buy coffee from like likes of Costa :D

Eucris said:
Going off at a slight tangent, why do people need "followers", why do people need "likes"?
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I see you collected a few with that comment :D
TBH I don't get it either.
There are is a small group of people on here that post the same image across various forums,
under different guises, it seems just for the likes.
And some of those post in a lot of Flickr sections / groups too.
I guess they think its ( likes) some kind of status symbol.
 
To some extent Flickr can be what you want it to be, as evidenced by some of the replies above. There many things that it's unlikely to be, too, for instance a place to sell your product.

I think that in some cases you first have to engage with it to be able to divine its nature & possibilities. One thing for sure is that it can't be everything.

It's easy to cultivate what you see and who you interact with there - to curate your experience rather than it being a free-for-all and descending into pointlessness. Most Flickr groups I've seen, for instance, are pretty much uncurated. But there are some great historical and other archives there. And some very fine and stimulating work. Some practitioners are impressively prolific.

The internet has provided a great avenue for interaction and sharing, but it's also a cacophony. You have to do your own filtering.

So Flickr, within its nature and limits, can be what you make it. But nobody's forced to join. And to answer the leading question - it's alive!
 
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Eucris said:
Going off at a slight tangent, why do people need "followers", why do people need "likes"?
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For some it will be an ego trip but I doubt. there are many here (for example) who don't appreciate someone enjoying (or 'liking') their photo.
After all if you don't want any comment on your photo (good or bad) then why post it in the public arena?
In truth, here on TP I think there are times when 'like' is just an acknowledgement of seeing the photo ... its introduction elbowed out critique, to such a degree that critique is now often seen as an affront!

I don't look for followers but I do follow some whose work I enjoy but these are mainly on youtube. :)
 
gramps said:
In truth, here on TP I think there are times when 'like' is just an acknowledgement of seeing the photo ... its introduction elbowed out critique, to such a degree that critique is now often seen as an affront!
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I totally agree, and I voted against the like button when it was floated in the staff room all those years (12 iirc) ago.
And yes I did like your post, but I also replied :D
 
Musicman said:
Some might call that a 'social media based marketing strategy' :D
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It doesn't bother me, and pretty much irrelevant here, as I doubt they are gaining anything from it, save a few "likes"
 
Eucris said:
Going off at a slight tangent, why do people need "followers", why do people need "likes"?
Click to expand...
Well, unless you're just keeping photos to yourself or only taking photos of family then likes and followers are unnecessary. But I think as photographers, amateur or otherwise, it's important to share your work with the world and be seen. I used to keep all of my photos to myself, for years, but once I started posting on social media it pushed me to be better.

It's very encouraging when you have people who legitimately enjoy seeing your work, and can give you feedback.

Craikeybaby said:
I think the problem for Flickr, is that is how people see it. It was designed to be a social network, in the days before social networks.

But in this age of Instagram trying to be TikTok, and seemingly a new photography based social network popping up every few weeks, then vanishing, one of my new years resolutions is to engage with the social side of Flickr, as it is the original photography based social network, and I am already paying for it (mainly to back up my images and/or share them on here).
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That's exactly it. Flickr did used to have a great community, but now I see groups everywhere with posts that haven't been replied to in 10 years.

Cobra said:
That's all I use it for, I dropped flickr pro when the price started climbing.
And to those that say its "only the price of a daily coffee"
I don't buy coffee from like likes of Costa :D
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This is my concern. It's ok to use it as hosting I think, provided they don't let site go completely out of date, but clearly the site isn't getting enough traffic to be supported by ads so that's why the introduced the photo limit subscription model. Now that subscription is going up in price, a lot. How long as it got left before they shut down?

So many once useful websites have gone over the last 20 years. Shut down, sold off, or just abandoned.
 
PixPete said:
that's why the introduced the photo limit subscription model. Now that subscription is going up in price, a lot.
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I just have a couple of free ones, at a 1000 limit. ( different email addresses required for that, if you didn't know)
TBH they kept saying they were going to delete my pro one down to a 1000 images.
I stopped paying a couple or so years ago, downloaded the images to folders on my PC.
But my pro one is still there in its entirety, but obviously I can no longer add anything.
 
In regards to Flickr, I've noticed over the last couple of years, how much more adult content seems to be on there, I know it's always been there, but now it seems a lot more prominent now.

Flickr is becoming quite seedy.

And no, I'm not looking for it!
 
People have described Flickr above as a storage site, but I realised recently that it doesn't accept raw files, which means that for me, it is no use as a storage resource.

Amazon is going to annoy Prime customers shortly, when it introduces advertising breaks to Prime Video. Amazon Prime also offers unlimited photo storage, including raw . So I was vaguely thinking of moving my cloud storage somewhere else and it won't be Flickr, 'cos of the above restriction. Can't help thinking Flickr is missing a trick there.
 
digitaria said:
when it introduces advertising breaks to Prime Video.
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Unless you are prepared to pay £2.99 ( iirc) extra.
Many of the films are now pay to view and yet free on the likes of NOW TV.
Plus the fact that prime isn't always next day.
I have a feeling that will be the next one I ditch.
 
I used to show my photos on Flickr, but I stopped using it, so I requested all my photos to be saved onto my hard drive. Closed my account.

Instagram became bad for photographers not too long ago, but I still use it.
Vero is a photography app that you could use.
 
PixPete said:
Well, unless you're just keeping photos to yourself or only taking photos of family then likes and followers are unnecessary. But I think as photographers, amateur or otherwise, it's important to share your work with the world and be seen. I used to keep all of my photos to myself, for years, but once I started posting on social media it pushed me to be better.

It's very encouraging when you have people who legitimately enjoy seeing your work, and can give you feedback.
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But likes are totally meaningless as feedback, you don't learn anything from them.
 
I still use it to post and host ,but rarely comment on others photos anymore . I do think that the smugmug owners brought in to many changes to fast . The Old contacts way allowed me to see and comment on people I followed but also in a lot of cases knew from around the country . A lot are now lost may have given up or might even be brown bread ? ..
that’s the trouble when I bright young spark thinks they have a cool idea but just f***s it up for everyone .
one of my best moments on there was finding erotic pics of a ex one day ,taken by her new partner .gave me the giggles anyway
 
digitaria said:
Amazon Prime also offers unlimited photo storage, including raw . So I was vaguely thinking of moving my cloud storage somewhere else and it won't be Flickr, 'cos of the above restriction. Can't help thinking Flickr is missing a trick there.
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Good shout. Amazon Photos may be the best storage option for photographers if Flickr goes down the drain (I suspect it will).

I currently use Amazon Photos to store our family photos because you can add family members to the account and then everyone can have the Photos app installed on their various different devices. It's a great way for everyone to have access to digitized family photo albums.
 
Eucris said:
Going off at a slight tangent, why do people need "followers", why do people need "likes"?
Click to expand...
It's not exactly a new thing if you think about it. People always showed off their photos and drawings in galleries. If you don't need followers or likes you'd just keep them to yourself wouldn't you.

I think it's dead, well it's dead to me, I use Amazon now for photos backup.
 
I love flickr true I could use Amazon prime to backup and possibly should but I think the way that you save photos there is really useful.
 
PixPete said:
Maybe we as photographers have a duty to keep Flickr alive. It's true what they say - use it or lose it.
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This is true, kind of.

Flickr also needs to make it's self desirable to use, the interface hasn't changed much in over 10 years and I haven't seen them promote themselves for a long time, if people don't know Flickr exists, then there will be fewer and fewer people signing up so it'll die off naturally.

Also, I know it's mostly outside of Flickrs control, but the quality content that is uploaded is part of the reason I don't go on there as much.
 
nx4737 said:
This is true, kind of.

Flickr also needs to make it's self desirable to use, the interface hasn't changed much in over 10 years and I haven't seen them promote themselves for a long time, if people don't know Flickr exists, then there will be fewer and fewer people signing up so it'll die off naturally.

Also, I know it's mostly outside of Flickrs control, but the quality content that is uploaded is part of the reason I don't go on there as much.
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Yes, there are some areas of the website which are very dated but they do keep the app updated at least. It's buttery smooth and the feed of people you follow is nicely preseted, reminds me of Instagram from 10 years ago, maybe better, but I don't think anyone's using it.

They do need to relaunch with a massive marketing campaign, but I doubt they ever will.
 
PixPete said:
They do need to relaunch with a massive marketing campaign, but I doubt they ever will.
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I'm guessing they are of a mind, that it aint broken, we aint fixing it.
It does seem to be alive and kicking, going on these stats.

  • Number of monthly users: over 60 million monthly users.
  • Total number of users: over 112 million.
  • Number of countries users come from: 72 countries.
 
nx4737 said:
the interface hasn't changed much in over 10 years
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Why should it need to change?
nx4737 said:
I know it's mostly outside of Flickrs control
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How could it be? The overall volume of uploads is too high to curate. And curation would make it a quite different animal.
nx4737 said:
the quality content that is uploaded is part of the reason I don't go on there as much.
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You can easily filter what you see. You don't have to just wallow in regardless. If you develop a strategy, your viewing will no longer be undifferentiated.
 
droj said:
Why should it need to change?
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Same reason every other website changes over time, to stay relevant. In the time since Flickr last had a major update, how many times have Facebook, Twitter, Instagram been updated to reflect modern trends?

droj said:
How could it be? The overall volume of uploads is too high to curate. And curation would make it a quite different animal.
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Hence why I said it was outside of their control...

droj said:
You can easily filter what you see. You don't have to just wallow in regardless. If you develop a strategy, your viewing will no longer be undifferentiated.
Click to expand...

Care to expand on this?
 
nx4737 said:
Same reason every other website changes over time, to stay relevant. In the time since Flickr last had a major update, how many times have Facebook, Twitter, Instagram been updated to reflect modern trends?
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Honestly I don't think Flickr should try to learn anything from Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. These three platforms use a different business model in which the data you upload is parsed, merged, mined and resold to third parties for advertising analytics and revenue generation via data profiling. As such, they need to maintain and even expand engagement at all costs, and constant refreshes of the interface are probably a good hook to get people to stay and keep coming.

I really don't think Flickr should aim to work like the above. It never has, and it fills a niche. It is based on a subscription model, to start with. Something like the Guardian website would be a more apt comparison, with the obvious difference that content is user-generated on flickr.

Apart from that, I pay a monthly subscription for both Flickr and the New York Times. I see 0 ads in both cases. I see nothing from people whose content doesn't interest me. I see only what I choose to see. And like the Guardian and the New York Times, the interface hasn't changed really that much over the past years (if at all), and it kind of.. just works.

All imho ofc! ;)
 
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nx4737 said:
Care to expand on this?
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If you're new there, admittedly what you see there will be somewhat undifferentiated - except that you will come across individual posters whose work you relate to, and can bookmark ('follow') them. It might also be worth looking at work that they in turn like (or 'fave'). And so on. But it's up to you to develop your own methods of engagement.

Forget about things like 'Explore' - it's just a pointless algorithm. Step clear of the mud. And if you want to, engage - you might find that people respond. Thus it can acquire the character of a democratic community, a free-floating 'village'. And given its structure, it's all about pictures, not about 'chatting'. And pictures are the vital essence of what we're about, right?
 
Cobra said:
That's all I use it for, I dropped flickr pro when the price started climbing.
And to those that say its "only the price of a daily coffee"
I don't buy coffee from like likes of Costa :D


I see you collected a few with that comment :D
TBH I don't get it either.
There are is a small group of people on here that post the same image across various forums,
under different guises, it seems just for the likes.
And some of those post in a lot of Flickr sections / groups too.
I guess they think its ( likes) some kind of status symbol.
Click to expand...
I think you've missed a lot of points tbh Chris. There are various reasons why people post on different forums and it's not usually for likes, a few below;

An interest in a certain genre so you will see the photo in several flickr groups ie. I post mine to several Leica groups as I know some people aren't in every group but they do have an interest in what a different model of camera is producing. Many M owners like to see what the Q produces as they might be thinking of adding one as a second camera. Many Q users consider moving to the M system etc. I also find it interesting to see photos from other parts of the world on the Leica forum and i'm sure that works in reverse too.

An interest in a certain camera or lens, people like to see what results can be achieved, good and bad, some people are obsessed with bokeh shape, sharpness, rendering etc. if that's their thing so be it, post away and tug yourself off over the roundness of someone's bokeh balls or go into a rage when seeing cats eye :ROFLMAO:

An interest in general photography and sharing your work can be a way of receiving feedback either directly or indirectly, not for "likes" but constructive criticism is always welcome. It certainly can help if you post a photo that gets little to no attention compared to some of your other work, that indicates to me that maybe i've got something wrong and i'll revisit the image / editing etc. to evaluate.
 
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