Hari's Corner

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Leaving Flickr for good

Filed under: Internet and Blogging by Hari
Posted on Sat, Nov 3, 2018 at 15:23 IST (last updated: Sat, Nov 17, 2018 @ 17:49 IST)

Edit: 17 Nov 2018 - Since writing this, I have thought about it and decided to give Flickr another chance. Since I already deleted my old account, I am starting afresh and seeing how Flickr turns out. New account can be found here

Am leaving Flickr for good. Why? This.

For me, the decision to limit Free account users to a maximum of 1000 photos (hard limit) is pretty much the final nail in the coffin, whatever other goodies might be offered to paid users.

Flickr has always been a site for casual (but very competent) photography enthusiasts, and non-paying users have pretty much been the backbone of this community. This is the sole reason I was on Flickr for such a long time, even though after the site overhaul in 2013, the community aspects of Flickr got damaged almost irreparably but at least the free users were spared and you could continue to use the website freely without worrying about hitting any hard restrictions. However, now, the new owners of Flickr have decided to restrict free users from posting more than 1000 photos and with this, the reasons to stay with Flickr have pretty much evaporated.

Here's a message I left on the official Help Forum which pretty much sums up my feelings on the subject.

Let's be honest. The only reason most of us are at Flickr is because of the wonderful community that existed prior to the site overhaul in 2013 or thereabouts. I could visibly see the community aspect damaged after those changes. Now I feel it is not worth paying for a pro account just for unlimited photos because you have generous space in Google photos to store pictures and Flickr just doesn't have the community that it used to. I rarely spend time on Flickr these days and I came over to this Forum only after seeing the announcement.

I never went beyond 1000 photos till date. But I am close to the limit now.

It seems today Flickr is just "Flickr" by name and everything else about what used to be Flickr is gone now. The new owners seem to want to milk the cash cow by using the brand name to its maximum extent.

Anyway, will have to decide whether to keep my existing photos here or simply remove the account lock stock and barrel. Am inclined to protest this decision by deleting all my photos and posting simply one picture which records my protest.

Truly, when a brand is taken over by a competing entity or business rival, it appears that the soul of the brand is lost. Flickr is just a name now for a service that is totally different from what existed prior to 2013, and this latest move appears to be the final nail in the coffin.

In future, I will restrict posting entire albums on Google photos and for the social interaction on individual pictures will probably continue on Facebook. Flickr is truly neither here nor there, with the thriving community long gone.

2 comment(s)

  1. Hey hari! Have you considered looking at federated networks? I've heard sites like pixelfed are not too bad.

    Comment by Dion Moult (visitor) on Mon, Nov 19, 2018 @ 03:09 IST #
  2. Hi Dion, thanks. Never heard of federated networks before. It appears that pixelfed is still under development?? No way to sign up/log in.

    Comment by Hari (blog owner) on Wed, Nov 21, 2018 @ 20:01 IST #

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