Hmm, time to dump flickr and finally build my own website?

You could do that just as well with your own web-space ...


But who's going to see it?

A personal web-space doesn't engender a community function. If anyone wants to share their work on-line, who do they end up sharing it with?

A web-space can be functional for some purposes, including business, but people have generally to be directed to it. Flickr, by contrast, enables photographers to discover each others' work and (often) experience reciprocal interest. It's not the place, though, to host your portfolio, for which you need the more self-structured environment of dedicated web-space.

Agreed - I just need a place to host images and display them on site such as TP :)

Les
 
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My 2p worth - I paid up for Pro when Smug Mug took over - partly to avoid having to sort and cull a couple of thousand images, partly as they promised "improvements" and I was hoping that meant something.
They've done their big hosting/infrastructure change which I'm sure was expensive and difficult but it had no impact on me as a user, I noticed no improvement.
They "offers" aren't anything I want and I don't use the massive storage available as it's locking me in even further and my broadband frankly isn't up to cloud backup.

I was mildly irritated at how much December's renewal was but let it ride, then a few weeks later I get an "offer" to share with my friends to get them to take up PRO at a rate lower than I'd just paid which irked quite a bit.
Now another price rise and the chance to pony up a lot more money on the promise of something unspecified in the future. Coupled with an attempt to pluck the heart strings about their commercial purchase still losing money.
I know from personal experience that companies making acquisitions often end up buying something in a much worse state than it appeared when they did their due diligence but to keep playing the violin about how expensive things are and how Smug Mug are losing money doesn't inspire confidence in the management. It's a business stop pretending it's a charity.
As others have said I'm slightly sceptical that Flickr will still be there in 2 years time. Squeezing the prices up on your existing customers to cover your short fall is seldom a smart move in the long term.

I'm turning off auto renewal and I'll make a decision in December when it is actually due but at the moment I think I'll probably let it drop to the free version then cull something to load something if I bother at all.
 
Just had a look - can't see how to turn off auto renew only "cancel my subscription" which is a bit shifty.

Nov 2018 I paid $34.99
Nov 2019 I paid $49.99

If I click "manage my subscription" it says an Annual Plan is £55.88

That's a heck of a hike, I don't think that's value for money for me so they're definitely not getting that this November.
 
Back to a free acc for me, been paying p.m since they introduced the charges and find I'm using it less and less over time. I'm barely over the 1K image mark atm so not a hard decision.
 
I'm barely over the 1K image mark atm so not a hard decision.
Fine if you use it just as an image store - and maybe as a resource to link to from sites such as this one. But not so good if you want to allow non-Flickr friends & strangers to browse your images w/o seeing pesky ads ...
 
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Just had this email from Flickr...They do seem to be in a bit of a pickle!

Hi Graham 2011,
We just learned of a new change to some 2-year subscriptions:
On Wednesday, January 22, we were notified by Braintree, the payment processor that currently processes billing for your Flickr Pro subscription, that effective immediately they will block all future transactions for two year subscriptions like yours.
Your account is currently on the two-year plan set to expire on Nov 19, 2020.
Our new payment processor, Digital River, supports two-year subscriptions. If you take advantage of our special offer to renew now at last year’s pricing you can choose a two-year plan and the payments will be processed by Digital River. Click here to renew now.
If you decide to remain with your current payment processor, Braintree, your subscription will renew as a one year subscription on your renewal date.
This change only affects subscribers who joined Pro before December 2018. Starting in December 2018, all new Flickr Pro subscription transactions are being handled by Digital River.
Please consult our Help Center and Help Forums with any other questions.
If you wish to change to a monthly or annual subscription term, or cancel, you can do so at any time at Flickr.com/account.
We appreciate your ongoing support as we continually work to improve Flickr for all of our members. Thank you for being a Pro.
– The Flickr Team
 
Fine if you use it just as an image store - and maybe as a resource to link to from sites such as this one. But not so good if you want to allow non-Flickr friends & strangers to browse your images w/o seeing pesky ads ...

AT the moment that is all I use it for, to link on forums. I used to be pretty active within the site itself, had the original pro acc for years, that was only $25 per year and it was worth it as the groups were very active. Now it's a bit of a wasteland, most seem to just use Flickr to share else where. I just don't think it's worth what they're hiking it to, €7.99 p.m my end
 
But not so good if you want to allow non-Flickr friends & strangers to browse your images w/o seeing pesky ads ...

Ive just look at someone’s Flickr photo stream who isn’t pro and I didn’t see any adverts. I’ve seen the adverts when viewing my own photo stream. That aren’t that intrusive compared to other places. If they were as bad as local news website it would be different!

The only ad I’ve ever seen is from Flickr themselves promoting pro membership. They don’t seem to be getting any revenue in from adverts on non pro member photo streams. If they did that it make help with revenue.

92365EE4-479E-4B8C-888C-88F016688A30.jpeg
 
Thankfully I have never got into this digital farse. Photobucket was used as the means to put photos up on a forum, but it was never used as a storage base. I have always stored my own photos. What is going to happen to those images that are over the limit? The 'extras' you might call them. Whoever owns Flicker certainly isn't going to lose them, I bet they get archived as 'orphan works' and used for revenue making.

The internet, it is a den of iniquity. I use it as infrequently as I possibly can. The only people I am worried about seeing my pictures are those who pay to do so. Otherwise, what is the point?
 
Ive just look at someone’s Flickr photo stream who isn’t pro and I didn’t see any adverts.
Then can I assume that you were logged into your Flickr account at the time? In which case you wouldn't see ads apart from those you mentioned.

The issue is that non-Flickr members, who can view but won't ever be logged in, are by default going to see ads in a free member's photostream after every third image or thereabouts, and if the author of those images pays for Pro, this is eliminated. Whether this matters depends on your individual expectations and the nature of your use.


The internet, it is a den of iniquity. I use it as infrequently as I possibly can
What are you doing here then, Simon?
The only people I am worried about seeing my pictures are those who pay to do so. Otherwise, what is the point?
Cultural exchange, old chap. I suppose that you are just trade?
 
Then can I assume that you were logged into your Flickr account at the time? In which case you wouldn't see ads apart from those you mentioned.

The issue is that non-Flickr members, who can view but won't ever be logged in, are by default going to see ads in a free member's photostream after every third image or thereabouts, and if the author of those images pays for Pro, this is eliminated. Whether this matters depends on your individual expectations and the nature of your use.

I was looking at Cobra’s photo stream. Maybe it had logged me in (not sure it had done so as I logged in after logging at cobras site. log in actually worked for the first time in ages as I’ve been locked out for a long time since they dropped yahoo email accounts).

Looking at my own photo stream when not logged in I don’t see any ads every 3 images.

48A527B8-1C04-48BA-AE93-03424488DF21.jpeg

A link to my flickr photo stream:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/robcain/

I’ve scrolled down my stream and don’t see a single ad. Maybe there are some gremlins in the flickr systems and ads are not showing every free account.

I get your point about the ads but as yet I’m not seeing them as that obtrusive. At the moment I’m not too bothered about seeing ads because I seem to see very few ads.

I’d like to support Flickr but it’s now 3 times the price it was when I was pro a few years back. Further prices increases seem to be on the cards when reading between the lines.
 
I’ve scrolled down my stream and don’t see a single ad. Maybe there are some gremlins in the flickr systems and ads are not showing every free account.

On your account, even though I am logged in(with a free account) I get adverts, every so often. Yahoo and Siteground were the two I got when looking at your "puffin" album.

This was discussed earlier in this thread and there seems to be an element of randomness with the ads. When looking before, I was able to browse around with no adverts some of the time, and at other times the ads came with annoying regularity.
 
It can be inconsistent, or it changes over time. Looking at your stream just now, Rob, without logging in, every sixth image I get not a third party ad but a blank screen with a message saying 'upgrade to pro so as not to see these ads' ...
 
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On your account, even though I am logged in(with a free account) I get adverts, every so often. Yahoo and Siteground were the two I got when looking at your "puffin" album.

This was discussed earlier in this thread and there seems to be an element of randomness with the ads. When looking before, I was able to browse around with no adverts some of the time, and at other times the ads came with annoying regularity.

It can be inconsistent, or it changes over time. Looking at your stream just now, Rob, without logging in, every sixth image I get not a third party ad but a blank screen with a message saying 'upgrade to pro so as not to see these ads' ...

That now makes sense. If the implementation is random then I can see why I havent noticed them (that and the fact I haven’t used Flickr that much in the last year. My last upload was December 2018 :sorry:

I don’t know what the solution for Flickr is. I want to see it work and it’s popularity get back to what it was, but I don’t think price increases will tempt people back. It’s definitely a hard one.
 
I don’t know what the solution for Flickr is. I want to see it work and it’s popularity get back to what it was, but I don’t think price increases will tempt people back. It’s definitely a hard one.

Strangely, price increases might be what it needs. I have only had a Flikr account for a short time, but I have often heard people talk about the great Flikr community of the old days before it seems to have become popular ( at least partially) as a place of cheap storage.

Maybe fewer users, paying enough to encourage them to work at getting their money's worth (as a photo-sharing and discussion site) might be what it needs.
 
I've only recently started using Flickr (technically I've had the account for years but never used it) and my only reason for doing so was specifically to post the odd image in this forum.

However, upon looking at it on my desktop and the phone app it seems SO much better than Instagram. Given how unhappy so many people are with how things are going on IG maybe it could be a good time for Flickr. It's basically the same as IG just much much better.

I'd have no trouble dropping IG and only using Flickr if the social side of it was more active.
 
I was looking at Cobra’s photo stream
Ah so you're the one (y)
:D

BTW
"Big stuff" is on a pro account
"Small Stuff" is a free account
 
Strangely, price increases might be what it needs. I have only had a Flikr account for a short time, but I have often heard people talk about the great Flikr community of the old days before it seems to have become popular ( at least partially) as a place of cheap storage.

Maybe fewer users, paying enough to encourage them to work at getting their money's worth (as a photo-sharing and discussion site) might be what it needs.
I’ve had a Flickr account since Feb 2010. When I first started I seem to remember the free account was limited to something like 100 images. Once I got near the 100 limit I went over to pro paying around 20 a year getting unlimited number image uploads and ‘stats’. I’ve never used it for storage. I limit the size I upload to something like 1024 pixels on the long edge. In those first few years I’d follow a few local photographers as well as others further a field. It was nice looking at what everyone was up to. Flickr always seemed to be the bond between photographers. I’d often bum into local photographers who after a quick chat I’d find out I was ‘friends’ with them on Flickr. I remember being in the Peak District one day photographing water voles with a couple of friend (one of which I’d met through Flickr and become good friends with). That day we meet 3 other photographers that at lest one of us had spoke to on Flickr by commenting on their photos. Those early years were great. A sense of genuine community rather than a copy and past comment like ‘nice capture’.

The problem is a few years later they decided to give 1TB storage on the free accounts. It was a silly amount of storage. Prior to that they hadn’t listed an actual storage value, just stating 100 image limit or unlimited image uploads instead. As could be guessed people started using it for free cloud storage because there was 1TB storage. At that point on the only reason to have pro was for the stats, which whilst nice to look at weren’t really a big deal unless you loved the numbers game. The number of active users has decreased too and it slowly seemed to lose users to Facebook, instagram and some extent Twitter.

I’m still not sure whether they have got the limitations and price right. 1000 uploads is a lot higher than it was a decade ago but the price of pro has tripled. A decade ago the idea of the free account was a free trial. You had enough time to try it for a few months before you would have step up to pro once you had hit the 100 image limitation. Being $25 dollars it didn’t feel a huge amount (I don’t know what that would be with inflation today). Today with it now being £55 and likely to increase further it’s something you question regarding cost.

I don’t know what the answer for Flickr is. I guess part of the issue is there are more places to share images now. Facebook and Instagram weren’t about back in Flickr’s heyday. It’s only competitor was 500px.

Flickr needs to entice both new and previous pro users back. There is still love for it but they need to get the price right and maybe cut out the rubbish like discount benefits. I do give them credit for not selling personal user details. That’s a refreshing change compared to other platforms.
 
I've only recently started using Flickr (technically I've had the account for years but never used it) and my only reason for doing so was specifically to post the odd image in this forum.

However, upon looking at it on my desktop and the phone app it seems SO much better than Instagram. Given how unhappy so many people are with how things are going on IG maybe it could be a good time for Flickr. It's basically the same as IG just much much better.

I'd have no trouble dropping IG and only using Flickr if the social side of it was more active.
A while back I found a way to automate image uploads to post to Facebook and Twitter. Instagram was the only one that didn’t work. You can now post from Instagram to both Facebook and twitter (although twitter is just a link back to instagram). If they found a way to upload to flickr yet be able to automate posts to Facebook, Twitter and instagram they would be onto a winner and may entice quite a few back if as it would simplify the management of multiple social media image posting.
 
I don’t know what the answer for Flickr is. I guess part of the issue is there are more places to share images now. Facebook and Instagram weren’t about back in Flickr’s heyday. It’s only competitor was 500px.

Flickr needs to entice both new and previous pro users back. There is still love for it but they need to get the price right and maybe cut out the rubbish like discount benefits. I do give them credit for not selling personal user details. That’s a refreshing change compared to other platforms.

I don't really know much about social media, so just going on what others are saying, but it does seem that Flikr has the advantage of being a "photographers" orientated site, which should give it an advantage over the likes of the more "social" focussed sites such as facebook. But maybe I just don't fully understand how the different platforms work.
 
maybe I just don't fully understand how the different platforms work.
I don’t think you are the only one. I’m not sure myself!

As far as Im aware Flickr’s a ‘photographers for photographers’ sharing site. It’s mainly other like minded photographers who will see it. Facebook and Instagram are more like places to share with none photographers (the general public who consume images at a very quick rate). Facebook is a pain because unless you pay them is boost your posts they limit the number of follows who may see the post in their stream. Twitter just seems to be a bum fight where the tiniest thing is blown out of all proportion. It seems to be full of some very angry people.
 
Facebook is fine for basic sharing and keeping a record of your photo but from my experience the quality gets compressed, with Flickr pro I upload at original res but have it limited to viewing 1080 so I know if I wanted in the future I could download the original image without quality loss (might never need to but its there)
 
A while back I found a way to automate image uploads to post to Facebook and Twitter. Instagram was the only one that didn’t work. You can now post from Instagram to both Facebook and twitter (although twitter is just a link back to instagram). If they found a way to upload to flickr yet be able to automate posts to Facebook, Twitter and instagram they would be onto a winner and may entice quite a few back if as it would simplify the management of multiple social media image posting.

Hey Rob, I don't have FB or Twitter. My only social media is IG and I'm rapidly losing faith in it. Plus I think it's a ridiculous that there are such glaring omissions to the functionality of it. Full screen, landscape orientation and proper zoom and pan should be there as a bare minimum surely?

But my usage may be very different to others. Really I'd like to just have one place to share and discuss and it really did look like Flickr could be that place but when I looked into the the social side of it, it seems it's really a graveyard. Which is a shame as everything I need is right there and it's so much better than IG. And no algorithm insanity. Posting on IG knowing most people won't see it even though they follow me just seems crazy!
 
Really I'd like to just have one place to share and discuss and it really did look like Flickr could be that place but when I looked into the the social side of it, it seems it's really a graveyard.
Depends what you mean by social, I suppose. I certainly find it very sociable. I use it as a place where I consort with those I consider to be my peers, where the main exchange is through each others' images, and it is very reciprocal. Seeing others' images can be stimulating / enriching, and it can be gratifying to have one's own efforts seen and appreciated, even if only at web sizes.

But generally it's not a place for chat / discussion. Which is fine by me - it's good to cut to the chase, which is to see the images.

On this basis, it's up to you to hunt down individuals and maybe groups that you respond to (though groups mostly are poorly curated :(), & you have to put some effort in.
 
Depends what you mean by social, I suppose. I certainly find it very sociable. I use it as a place where I consort with those I consider to be my peers, where the main exchange is through each others' images, and it is very reciprocal. Seeing others' images can be stimulating / enriching, and it can be gratifying to have one's own efforts seen and appreciated, even if only at web sizes.

But generally it's not a place for chat / discussion. Which is fine by me - it's good to cut to the chase, which is to see the images.

On this basis, it's up to you to hunt down individuals and maybe groups that you respond to (though groups mostly are poorly curated :(), & you have to put some effort in.

Sorry drop, I thought I replied to you. I definitely wrote it but maybe I forgot to post it!

What you said there sounds very positive. I clearly need to do a bit more digging. Just on first glance it looked a bit dead!
 
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