Flickr making another play to "entice" people to go Pro?

ecoleman said:
I don't have a problem with paying for something like Flickr, I did for a few years but I felt that we were getting nothing in return so cancelled.
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My situation too - I just wanted a hosting solution. Not storage. Not stats. Not competitions.

I'm part of the Flickr Alpha group where new ideas get floated and suggestions can be made, but there seems to be zero interest from Smugmug in an intermediate level membership that serves the needs of people like me (and there were quite a few).
 
ecoleman said:
I have thoughts. They can #£*@ off

It’s dead and outdated. Why would anyone pay for it?
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I'm not particularly a fan of Flickr, and I'm willing to believe it's dead, but what are the alternatives? The other services I know have unacceptable terms of service.

Facebook is an example: "Specifically, when you share, post or upload content that is covered by intellectual property rights on or in connection with our Products, you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free and worldwide licence to host, use, distribute, modify, run, copy, publicly perform or display, translate and create derivative works of your content" (§ 3.3.2).
 
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Citizen of Bath said:
I'm not particularly a fan of Flickr, and I'm willing to believe it's dead, but what are the alternatives? The other services I know have unacceptable terms of service.

Facebook is an example: "Specifically, when you share, post or upload content that is covered by intellectual property rights on or in connection with our Products, you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free and worldwide licence to host, use, distribute, modify, run, copy, publicly perform or display, translate and create derivative works of your content" (§ 3.3.2).
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I am no fan of Facebook, but they must have a clause like this in their Terms of Service to able to operate their service legally.

They make copies of your work, store and distribute them to other people. Without your explicit permission, those actions would infringe your copyright,

It is transferable and sub-licensable because they use third parties like AWS to store and transmit your data.

Derivative works may include activities such as creating thumbnails, badges or avatars for your Facebook page.

It is non-exclusive, which means you are at liberty to license the use of your images elsewhere.
 
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I am happy to pay for it , Don't understand why users expect it to be free ?. Do you know how much it costs to run a big web site? with big storage servers.
My subscription was £75 for 2 years , I don't use it much but when I do it works for me.
 
I was a massive Flickr user in the early 2000s, when the community there was great. There was real traction when you posted something, and lots of people willing to critique your images. The community on Flickr has sadly filtered away, and I cancelled my pro subscription a few years ago. I keep an account going because there is nowhere else that will allow me to embed my images with BB code. I tried doing it from my Amazon Photos account and the links stopped working after a few weeks.

If they reduced the subscription costs and actually offered something on the community side again aimed at photographers, I think a lot of photographers would go back there. I have never expected something for nothing form Flickr and would never use it for backup as it would take forever to restore from it.

I honestly don't know what Flickr is trying to be these days. Other than a dead platform.
 
G-Slev said:
and would never use it for backup as it would take forever to restore from it.
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In my experience it actually doesn't, I had around 50,000 photos in a previous account and downloaded the lot in .zip files (you can do individual files, albums or all).
I paused at renewal this year but, in the end, reckoned that at around £1 a week it was insignificant in the stream of things ... it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that everything on the Internet should be 'free'. :)
 
G-Slev said:
lots of people willing to critique your images
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The nature of Flickr, as it naturally manifests itself at the present time, isn't critique! However a vibrant sense of community can be found there.
G-Slev said:
I honestly don't know what Flickr is trying to be these days. Other than a dead platform.
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That is a sour remark seemingly based on your inability to find what you want there. If you can't get what you want, maybe an inference is that your expectations are unrealistic in the context of what Flickr is, and is hardly a reason to damn the whole show across the board.

However feel free - nobody's forcing you to be there! ;-)
 
Musicman said:
I am no fan of Facebook, but they must have a clause like this in their Terms of Service to able to operate their service legally.

They make copies of your work, store and distribute them to other people. Without your explicit permission, those actions would infringe your copyright,

It is transferable and sub-licensable because they use third parties like AWS to store and transmit your data.

Derivative works may include activities such as creating thumbnails, badges or avatars for your Facebook page.

It is non-exclusive, which means you are at liberty to license the use of your images elsewhere.
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I see what you mean, but, then, how can Flickr have a much more protective licence?
 
It
Citizen of Bath said:
I see what you mean, but, then, how can Flickr have a much more protective licence?
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The language is slightly different but the substance of Flickr's Terms say pretty much the same thing.

Help | Terms | Flickr

www.flickr.com www.flickr.com

Flickr said:
by uploading and/or posting any User Content to the Services, you request, and grant SmugMug a perpetual, nonexclusive and royalty-free right to use the User Content (and the user name that is submitted in connection with such User Content) as is reasonably necessary in order to do the following: (1) provide the Services, including to display the User Content on the Services; (2) comply with your instructions pursuant to Flickr’s Data Protection Addendum; (3) comply with legal requirements, including disclosing User Content in response to legal process from governmental authorities; (4) disclose User Content without any compulsory legal process when Flickr believes there is a threat to life or limb. In the absence of a legal requirement to do so, Flickr may refrain from notifying you of Flickr’s disclosures to governmental authorities where such notification may jeopardize an important law enforcement investigation. Flickr may engage service providers for assistance with carrying out any obligation or exercising any right under these Terms of Use.
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FB are a little more specific about some of their purposes (host, distribute, modify, translate) where Flickr have a simpler and much broader term 'use'.
 
Musicman said:
It


The language is slightly different but the substance of Flickr's Terms say pretty much the same thing.

Help | Terms | Flickr

www.flickr.com www.flickr.com



FB are a little more specific about some of their purposes (host, distribute, modify, translate) where Flickr have a simpler and much broader term 'use'.
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Interesting! I'm almost sure that the previous Flickr licence afforded much greater protection. That was before SmugMug bought Flickr. Unfortunately, I didn't keep a copy, so maybe I'm wrong.
 
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I only really upload my better shots, and after 10 years or so I'm only just nearing the 1000 photo limit. I probably would have sprung for it when I hit that limit, but I have a real problem with companies purposefully hobbling their products and then selling you a solution.

If I'm going to spend money, It's going to be on domain registration and a NAS to host it from.
 
Citizen of Bath said:
Interesting! I'm almost sure that the previous Flickr licence afforded much greater protection. That was before SmugMug bought Flickr. Unfortunately, I didn't keep a copy, so maybe I'm wrong.
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As @Musicman said, the terms are written as such to allow the sites to work as they do - and they have had similar clauses for as long as I've been using them.
It's much the same as the clause Adobe put in their T&C's to allow the 'AI' tools within PS & LR to upload and process images on their servers (rather than performing processing on your PC) - without them they are violating your copyright, but there was a huge fuss when they first appeared as people thought Adobe were claiming rights to your images.
 
I wonder how this will affect third party plugins and API access etc - I use a Raspberry Pi running Dakboard to display a slideshow of my images at full size on my TV...
 
jimmyjamjojo said:
I wonder how this will affect third party plugins and API access etc - I use a Raspberry Pi running Dakboard to display a slideshow of my images at full size on my TV...
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Looks like it applies to any third party integrations - my dakboard is now displaying low resolution images. Great.
 
Some interesting views and comments above. Things have moved on apace since I started this thread and despite writing "However we go in the future I defo won't be paying for Pro!", in post #4, the members of the club have decided to fund a 2 year Pro account :eek:

We will go past the 1000 pictures point next week, after a maintenance day at Mission Motorsport today and a track day at Llandow on Tuesday :)
 
Bristolian said:
Some interesting views and comments above. Things have moved on apace since I started this thread and despite writing "However we go in the future I defo won't be paying for Pro!", in post #4, the members of the club have decided to fund a 2 year Pro account :eek:

We will go past the 1000 pictures point next week, after a maintenance day at Mission Motorsport today and a track day at Llandow on Tuesday :)
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Mission Motorsport is a fantastic organisation!
Clubbing together to buy a group Flickr account is a great idea!
 
I pay for the Pro plan—would I like it to cost less? Of course. But I also understand that maintaining high-performance servers at the scale required isn't cheap. While I’ve set my maximum downloadable image size to 1024px for viewers, I can still access and download the full-resolution versions whenever I need to—and I often do. For me, it’s a reliable backup solution and a convenient way to share images when needed. Honestly, considering today’s costs, it’s a relatively small price to pay for the peace of mind that comes with having all your images backed up and accessible anytime.
 
jimmyjamjojo said:
If I'm going to spend money, It's going to be on domain registration and a NAS to host it from.
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The thing is, once you’ve factored in the cost of the domain, NAS and running it 24/7 it’s probably going to take a few years to break even, if it even does. Some arrays can consume upwards of 50watts and over a year that’s a significant amount of energy. And if you’re are using this as a backup, then you might want to get UPS, which ultimately is a consumable item that adds to the cost.

Now admittedly, you can use your NAS to store more than photos, but I don’t think the cost of Flickr is too bad considering. The community isn’t what it was, I wish they make the forums or boards better.
 
cuthbert said:
The community isn’t what it was, I wish they make the forums or boards better.
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Your Flickr community is what you make it - you can follow the work of and communicate with those that you want to, & in many cases it will be reciprocal. To me there is substance & sustenance in that, which very much constitutes community - not least because it signifies that your stuff's recognised & appreciated by fully-fledged humans rather than immature box-tickers.

As an aside, a rather silly Flickr device is the 'explore' algorithm where a robot selects photos to promote, which spawns a host of fly-by-night 'likes', most of whom will never be seen again. But that's just a peripheral irritation & far from being part of Flickr's core value.

If you want a forum, there are forums elsewhere - including one right here (hey!) which for what it's worth has a distinct UK identity. Hardly a shortage.
 
cuthbert said:
The thing is, once you’ve factored in the cost of the domain, NAS and running it 24/7 it’s probably going to take a few years to break even, if it even does. Some arrays can consume upwards of 50watts and over a year that’s a significant amount of energy. And if you’re are using this as a backup, then you might want to get UPS, which ultimately is a consumable item that adds to the cost.

Now admittedly, you can use your NAS to store more than photos, but I don’t think the cost of Flickr is too bad considering. The community isn’t what it was, I wish they make the forums or boards better.
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It's not even about the price - as I said I was nearing the 1000 photo limit and would have probably gone pro anyway. I just take issue with companies that purposefully hobble their services to promote their "Pro" options.

This isn't about server resources - I can still view full size when logged into my account, so the data is being sent to my machine, just in some temp file somewhere instead of my download folder. Stopping me downloading the image saves nothing on their end.

Initial outlay for the NAS is ~£250, already have drives and a UPS.
My domain reg is £15, the NAS runs at 17W (likely less in reality), so around £45 a year at today's prices - Total ongoing cost £60 a year, and I get backups, my own domain and website design, and can use the NAS for other stuff too.
 
I am not a fan of home NASs. I wouldn't leave any electrical equipment running when I leave the house, as it is a fire risk.
 
A part of the problem is that one cannot have the bits you find useful at an appropriate cost, but you have to pay for the stupid, useless stuff you don't want.
 
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droj said:
Your Flickr community is what you make it - you can follow the work of and communicate with those that you want to, & in many cases it will be reciprocal. To me there is substance & sustenance in that, which very much constitutes community - not least because it signifies that your stuff's recognised & appreciated by fully-fledged humans rather than immature box-tickers.

As an aside, a rather silly Flickr device is the 'explore' algorithm where a robot selects photos to promote, which spawns a host of fly-by-night 'likes', most of whom will never be seen again. But that's just a peripheral irritation & far from being part of Flickr's core value.

If you want a forum, there are forums elsewhere - including one right here (hey!) which for what it's worth has a distinct UK identity. Hardly a shortage.
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The part of the Flickr community which really died off are the lens specific groups - back in the day they were quite useful and had active discussions - it was really handy especially when you were learning, seeing what lenses / focal lengths / style that appealed, but these days there are mostly dead and often not curated and filled with images that aren’t for that lens etc

I agree, communities like this are much better than Flickr as it’s too convoluted, but when you had a specific question about a shot or lens, people used to answer or contribute and that’s not so common now. I enjoy my feed and I get inspiration from it, but it is a lot quieter than it was.
 
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jimmyjamjojo said:
It's not even about the price - as I said I was nearing the 1000 photo limit and would have probably gone pro anyway. I just take issue with companies that purposefully hobble their services to promote their "Pro" options.

This isn't about server resources - I can still view full size when logged into my account, so the data is being sent to my machine, just in some temp file somewhere instead of my download folder. Stopping me downloading the image saves nothing on their end.

Initial outlay for the NAS is ~£250, already have drives and a UPS.
My domain reg is £15, the NAS runs at 17W (likely less in reality), so around £45 a year at today's prices - Total ongoing cost £60 a year, and I get backups, my own domain and website design, and can use the NAS for other stuff too.
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That’s absolutely right, and I agree, it’s very frustrating how Flickr have tightened the thumbscrews and ens***tified their product but also it is worth pointing out that even by your own numbers, the 5 year cost of doing it yourself is £550 vs Flickr is £330 (and actually less if you buy two years up front), and your numbers don’t include the cost of a backup drive or cloud storage (to backup the nas), the drives, the ups and the depreciation / wear on those drives - so that approach definitely isn’t for everyone - and I think proves that it isn’t terrible value, even if it isn’t great value for somebody who just wants to store photos. But as you say, you can definitely do more with the NAS, run dockers / adblockers on some them etc but you are certainly paying for that.
 
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I must admit, I've never really used Flickr much, other than when it first came out. Is it worth actually utilising? Seems there's nothing else quite as decent around, but seem to get most traction on things like IG or even FB these days.
 
I have just seen the 'I want to see a photo on Flickr.com homepage but don't have a free account' denial page!

The four (4) ways for a person without any sort of Flickr account to see your photo/s now are:

1) Follow a link to a photograph of yours (not your username) on Flickr.
2) Follow a link to a photograph of yours (not your username) on Flickr and then click on your username.
3) Follow a link to your 'Photostream home page' .
4) Type Flickr into google and pick either the 'Explore' option OR the 'Groups' option.

NOTE: The new criteria is "Unlimited storage up to 6K resolution" - I want just over 8k resolution for my Canon 5DSr :( !

Comments anyone?
 
Fixer said:
I have just seen the 'I want to see a photo on Flickr.com homepage but don't have a free account' denial page!

The four (4) ways for a person without any sort of Flickr account to see your photo/s now are:

1) Follow a link to a photograph of yours (not your username) on Flickr.
2) Follow a link to a photograph of yours (not your username) on Flickr and then click on your username.
3) Follow a link to your 'Photostream home page' .
4) Type Flickr into google and pick either the 'Explore' option OR the 'Groups' option.

NOTE: The new criteria is "Unlimited storage up to 6K resolution" - I want just over 8k resolution for my Canon 5DSr :( !

Comments anyone?
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I just type what I am looking for in the SEARCH BOX. You don't need an account to do that.
 
I get this . . . flickr access denied box.jpg
 
I just asked Flickr to return Pro to 8k resolutions. Fingers crossed!
 
So today, 25 July, I got an email from flickr to tell me they are changing their ToS as of 24 July, yesterday. TBF this is apparently in response to the new UK government legislation requiring age checking on any sites that might display porn (a reasonable enough aim though apparently implemented with a rather heavy hand). The net effect is that if you want to view porn on flickr (ie SafeSearch turned off) you'll need a Pro licence (paid with a credit card for age checking, um, yeah). Also new users will have to be 18 or over. If you're an overseas user and travel to the UK, SafeSearch will be required while you're one these sainted shores.

I presume the short timescales here mean they were rather caught with their pants down!
 
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