Flickr changes- free accounts limited to 1000 images.

Pekka wrote in post #18742785
What I mean is that when this site has a script that downloads your Flickr image file and re-saves it here, is there anything in Flickr ToS (Terms of Service) that would prohibit that. Even if you have uploaded your own images there, there is usually a clause in ToS that all content belongs to the site. Just want to be sure.

https://www.smugmug.co​m/about/terms-flickr

http://blog.flickr.net …ree-accounts-1000-photos/

In their statement they explain that only 3% of users have more than 1000 photos. That does not make sense as a reason. They essentially force 3% to pay, and most of those will not pay, so in the end they end up having a free site that maybe about 1% of users monetize. Does that sound like a fair deal?

"And because storing tens of billions of Flickr members’ photos is staggeringly expensive, we need our most-active members to help us continue investing in Flickr"

Because most won't pay, that means they still have to use ads. With this move have lost their biggest asset: reliability as image delivery platform and a brand name.

Pekka wrote in post #18742806
http://blog.flickr.net …ree-accounts-1000-photos/

In their statement they explain that only 3% of users have more than 1000 photos. That does not make sense as a reason. They essentially force 3% to pay, and most of those will not pay, so in the end they end up having a free site that maybe about 1% of users monetize. Does that sound like a fair deal?

"And because storing tens of billions of Flickr members’ photos is staggeringly expensive, we need our most-active members to help us continue investing in Flickr"

Because most won't pay, that means they still have to use ads. With this move have lost their biggest asset: reliability as image delivery platform and a brand name.

I decided over 10 yrs ago that I did not like Smugmug. Looks like I will be not likeing them all over again!

Jethr0 wrote in post #18742787
https://www.smugmug.co​m/about/terms-flickr

Thanks.

This is now my official decision:
Based on the complexity of those terms, I won't do any tools to handle the transfer. Also, this is a free site and serving potentially millions of their embedded images (as a "cache") is not possible because of bandwidth costs.

We have an image upload feature here, and a post edit feature. That should be enough if anyone wants to salvage some of their posts here. If you re-upload images that are in your gallery you will need to re-add them after upload, same goes to EXIF/metadata, unless you upload images with embedded EXIF.

If I were you, I would first wait to see what images really get deleted, if any.

It is a mess, but as said, this is a free service and there a limits to efforts I can/will do to remedy some commercial megasite's greedy change of service. Many Flickr images won't load after that change, but a lot will do - I'm sure not all POTN members belong to top 3% of Flickr users.

What I can do, is make a info tool that lists your Flickr images posted, and if they actually load or not.

There is also already an internal tool that lets us check that all member's gallery images actually load, and you can remove images from gallery there. I can make that tool public later.

Also, if you re-upload a Flickr photo that is in 'Best Of' gallery, add it to your gallery again and PM me about it and I'll re-add it to 'Best Of'.

Pekka wrote in post #18742806
http://blog.flickr.net …ree-accounts-1000-photos/

In their statement they explain that only 3% of users have more than 1000 photos. That does not make sense as a reason. They essentially force 3% to pay, and most of those will not pay, so in the end they end up having a free site that maybe about 1% of users monetize. Does that sound like a fair deal?

"And because storing tens of billions of Flickr members’ photos is staggeringly expensive, we need our most-active members to help us continue investing in Flickr"

Because most won't pay, that means they still have to use ads. With this move have lost their biggest asset: reliability as image delivery platform and a brand name.

Unfortunately, I have about 2,000 images on flickr, so I'll have a lot of deleting to do. I think that it's weird (and annoying) to set a cap with the number of images as opposed to the amount of storage; the current cap is 1tb, which I thought was absurdly generous when they instituted it, and I'm only using <500mb, so about 0.5% of the cap. If this was really about the expense of storing users' photos, why not directly address storage?

ptcanon3ti wrote in post #18742602
I guess I'll be deleting my images from Flickr. I refuse to pay them.

I had 1500, deleted 1300, been a member for 12 years, paid for a while but went back to free. No way Im paying again as flickr as a community has died. Wont be posting as many images on there now. I also opened a second account to link t other sites. You could open a heap of them really

kiwichris wrote in post #18742813
I decided over 10 yrs ago that I did not like Smugmug. Looks like I will be not likeing them all over again!

Just occurred to me, if they are so worried about server costs, why they keep offering tons of different image sizes, including very large sizes (up to 5K now)?

Flickr, listen:
Make the larger than 1280 sizes available only for paid accounts, and let other's upload something like 5000 photos and serve them as 640 and 1280 only (no original size in gallery at all, stored only internally). That would drastically cut the bandwidth and storage requirements but still keep the service as it is.

WhyFi wrote in post #18742827
If this was really about the expense of storing users' photos, why not directly address storage?

Pekka wrote in post #18742837
Just occurred to me, if they are so worried about server costs, why they keep offering tons of different image sizes, including very large sizes (up to 5K now)?

Flickr, listen:
Make the larger than 1280 sizes available only for paid accounts, and let other's upload something like 5000 photos and serve them as 640 and 1280 only (no original size in gallery at all, stored only internally). That would drastically cut the bandwidth and storage requirements but still keep the service as it is.

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But, unfortunately, it isn't really about the storage. . It's about finding a way to suck money out of people.

It seems that a whole type of online business model is to give a lot of people something for free, and then after they get used to having it, take it away unless they start paying for it. . It's very intentional and very planned out. . It's really pretty evil when you think about it.


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Exactly... I had ~1800 images, using less than 5% of my 1TB allotment.

Edit... omitted a decimal... Less than .5%!

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Quoted from the other thread:

AZGeorge wrote in post #18741974
Even if the increase hit would come sooner, I'd be inclined to stay the course to give Verizon/Oath one more reason to keep Flickr healthy. With the recent exit of Tim Armstrong it seems unlikely that Oath will be spun off so they will remain at the tender mercies of the Verizon overlords and need of all the income they can muster. Flickr is a small enough part of the Oath/Yahoo/AOL/HuffPo/​TechCrunch/Tumblr universe that a few thousand Pro subscribers could make the difference.

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George, you don't seem to realize that Flickr is now owned by SmugMug, and has nothing to do with Verizon or Oath or Yahoo anymore.


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Sounds like a Photobucket move but they wanted $40 a month. It did not go well for them.

I have roughly 30,000 images in 3 accounts at Flickr, One set are travel to Cozumel & the diving there, another is my personal stuff but the big one is all the Radio Control event albums which are volunteer work & convey the history of things going on in my little area of the world. Under the new rules I will likely have to either pay (not happening for 1 important reason, & that's my age & family tree history which say's I 'm already dead & buried. I won't be able to pay the bill when that's true so all the years of work will be deleted once & for all). The other option limits me to 5 or maybe 6 albums and after each new event I delete the oldest in the set. Doable but not desirable.

Having seen the writing on the wall when it was announced Smugmug took over Flickr & all it's accounts I decided I'd had enough of this constant downloading from 1 free hosting site & then uploading to another (some albums have moved 6 times) I decided to approach my local MAAC rep (Model Aeronautics Association of Canada, our sanctioning body) & see if he might ask HQ about hosting all the event photos. The response has been very positive about them doing it & I'm working at resurrecting all the original files (many of which are only in RAW) to go with the low res on line albums which I still have as zip files from both Picasa Web Albums & now from Flickr too for the newer albums hosted there. It's turned into a lot of work but even if MAAC doesn't decide to host them they will be given the photos & the rights to them. I'm hopeful they will be useful down the road as part of their past history.

MAAC has also started using Facebook to & this year I started adding my albums to my page & sharing it to the related FB groups but there seems to be a large group of people who refuse to use FB for various reasons so it's by no means perfect.

Does anyone have a recommendation for a good free site?

When smugmug bought Flickr, I was afraid this could happen, converting flickr to a "social" like smugmug with no free plans, that 3% of free accounts over 1000 images are just excuses to begin to execute their plan to limit more and more this kind of accounts so force you to go to pro accounts with a 100% more charge with no real benefits in a site that's is losing views and interaction as people is leaving the site, that's the reason why I'm not considering an upgrade as I'm far away from the limit and I'm shooting less and less every year.