Flickr...What have you done?
Discussion
t. What I can’t get my head around is $499 per year for two terabytes of storage, or $49 per year for unlimited storage. I must be missing some other benefit of the top-tier service. What is it? And is it really worth $459 per year?
Is it removal of the monthly upload cap? Because the cap effectively stops anyone actually ever filling their two TB …
My Pro account refund arrived this morning, by the way. Quicker than I expected.
Is it removal of the monthly upload cap? Because the cap effectively stops anyone actually ever filling their two TB …
My Pro account refund arrived this morning, by the way. Quicker than I expected.
There is no way anyone in their right mind will pay $499 a year for 2 terrabytes. That's just crazy.
I like certain aspects of the new design, and I think a revert back to the old design would be a backwards step and the site would instantly feel old and dated again (which to be honest, it was).
I like the new photostream as it makes the pictures more noticeable. I always liked the option to have larger images on the first page of your photosream, but annoyingly this was never available for all of the other pages. What I don't like is that it doesn't show the number of views when hovering over the images.
In fact the whole attitude towards stats is really poor. I intend to let my Pro account auto-renew for another year, as there has been no mention of what happens to stats in the new account options. It seems that if you are a new member there is no way to get stats on your photos. I really like the stats, especially being able to see where my photos are being used, yet it does feel like Flickr are moving away from offering them. That would be a big mistake IMO. They need to understand that people want to know which of their photos are popular and see where they are being linked from.
I am really against the big black box on individual photo pages. That just makes the lightbox feature entirely pointless. The best thing about the lightbox before was that it gave the opportunity to view the photo on a contrasting background. Some photos look best on white, some best on black. Now there is no choice, all photos pages are stuck on black meaning if your photo contains a lot of dark areas you'll probably need to stick a white border around it to avoid it getting lost in the background colour. Separating the page with the black area also makes the comments and info feel like an after thought.
Other things that I don't like
- the EXIF info that was introduced recently (aperture, shutter, ISO, focal length) has been removed and I now have to view ALL of the exif data under the ... menu instead of just the bits I want to see.
- removing the geotag map. The text location is nearly always wrong so I preferred the map (even though it is still available if you click on the text)..
I like certain aspects of the new design, and I think a revert back to the old design would be a backwards step and the site would instantly feel old and dated again (which to be honest, it was).
I like the new photostream as it makes the pictures more noticeable. I always liked the option to have larger images on the first page of your photosream, but annoyingly this was never available for all of the other pages. What I don't like is that it doesn't show the number of views when hovering over the images.
In fact the whole attitude towards stats is really poor. I intend to let my Pro account auto-renew for another year, as there has been no mention of what happens to stats in the new account options. It seems that if you are a new member there is no way to get stats on your photos. I really like the stats, especially being able to see where my photos are being used, yet it does feel like Flickr are moving away from offering them. That would be a big mistake IMO. They need to understand that people want to know which of their photos are popular and see where they are being linked from.
I am really against the big black box on individual photo pages. That just makes the lightbox feature entirely pointless. The best thing about the lightbox before was that it gave the opportunity to view the photo on a contrasting background. Some photos look best on white, some best on black. Now there is no choice, all photos pages are stuck on black meaning if your photo contains a lot of dark areas you'll probably need to stick a white border around it to avoid it getting lost in the background colour. Separating the page with the black area also makes the comments and info feel like an after thought.
Other things that I don't like
- the EXIF info that was introduced recently (aperture, shutter, ISO, focal length) has been removed and I now have to view ALL of the exif data under the ... menu instead of just the bits I want to see.
- removing the geotag map. The text location is nearly always wrong so I preferred the map (even though it is still available if you click on the text)..
ChipsAndCheese said:
I like the new photostream as it makes the pictures more noticeable. I always liked the option to have larger images on the first page of your photosream, but annoyingly this was never available for all of the other pages. What I don't like is that it doesn't show the number of views when hovering over the images.
I think views are going to plummet, personally. A view only gets recorded when people click through to the pic. With the "thumbnails" so huge now, people won't bother. That was always the reason for my pages having the smaller 2-across thumbnail size rather than the larger 1-across one. I always felt that the larger pics discouraged people from viewing the larger pic. Of course that only applies to people browsing your stream; links and search engine results are still going to generate views.
I can't see any mention of stats for free accounts either and, like you, I found them very useful. Useful enough to pay the $24.95 for Pro on all three of my Flickr accounts even though it's fairly unjustifiable and purely a vanity thing.
AndrewEH1 said:
I can get on 500px at work too...might be tempted to switch if it has most of the features flickr has, the only issue is that a lot of photographer that I like use flickr.
That's always the way with alternatives though, isn't it? Google+ hasn't really taken off because everyone is on Facebook. And alternatives to eBay likewise suffer from a lack of userbase. The other problem is that, whilst you can copy your photos and metadata away from Flickr you're going to lose all the comments, views, faves, etc. for each picture, which are the very things that have always made Flickr so rich and fun. Personally I get a bit of a narcissistic kick out of a pic of mine having 2000+ views and a load of positive comments and faves. Sad, but true.
I'd be really interested in knowing the rational behind all this.
Up until all this broke, Flickr Pro was a relatively inexpensive $24.95pa and gave a lot of benefits, to the extent that it was relatively easy to justify the cost.
What they have now done is remove a majority of the benefits and doubled the price. Ok, the $49.99 offering isn't called Flickr Pro, but it is the equivalent if you want stats and no adverts.
So presumably they think people will either be so desperate to retain stats and no adverts that they will pay double, or else they will make so much extra money from advertising that they will be overall better off.
And that's before you get into the turn-off of the assault on your eyes of the new look, and the massive reduction in customisability.
Up until all this broke, Flickr Pro was a relatively inexpensive $24.95pa and gave a lot of benefits, to the extent that it was relatively easy to justify the cost.
What they have now done is remove a majority of the benefits and doubled the price. Ok, the $49.99 offering isn't called Flickr Pro, but it is the equivalent if you want stats and no adverts.
So presumably they think people will either be so desperate to retain stats and no adverts that they will pay double, or else they will make so much extra money from advertising that they will be overall better off.
And that's before you get into the turn-off of the assault on your eyes of the new look, and the massive reduction in customisability.
JonRB said:
What they have now done is remove a majority of the benefits and doubled the price. Ok, the $49.99 offering isn't called Flickr Pro, but it is the equivalent if you want stats and no adverts.
So presumably they think people will either be so desperate to retain stats and no adverts that they will pay double, or else they will make so much extra money from advertising that they will be overall better off.
I think all you get for $49.99 over free is no adverts. I can't see stats mentioned for anything other than 'legacy' Pro accounts.So presumably they think people will either be so desperate to retain stats and no adverts that they will pay double, or else they will make so much extra money from advertising that they will be overall better off.
By continuing to pay for an existing Pro subscription at $24.95 (for as long as it is allowed!) it looks like you keep all your existing benefits (including unlimited storage and stats), but gain with the new maximum image size and video file size/playback length.
Ok, it sucks if you are a free user now, but if you already have a Pro subscription you aren't losing out.
JonRB said:
Up until all this broke, Flickr Pro was a relatively inexpensive $24.95pa and gave a lot of benefits, to the extent that it was relatively easy to justify the cost.
What they have now done is remove a majority of the benefits and doubled the price. Ok, the $49.99 offering isn't called Flickr Pro, but it is the equivalent if you want stats and no adverts.
Just in case you didn't understand Pro accounts stay at the same price, for exactly the same as you had before.What they have now done is remove a majority of the benefits and doubled the price. Ok, the $49.99 offering isn't called Flickr Pro, but it is the equivalent if you want stats and no adverts.
I don't think you can compare the $50 account with the old Pro accounts, the new free accounts have as much in common as the $50 ones.
The only benefit the old pro account had that the new ones don't that I can see is unlimited storage.
Crafty_ said:
Just in case you didn't understand Pro accounts stay at the same price, for exactly the same as you had before.
Yes, I realise that as peter pointed it out in the previous post. Crafty_ said:
The only benefit the old pro account had that the new ones don't that I can see is unlimited storage.
And stats and no adverts. Crafty_ said:
So what are these "majority" of benefits that have been removed from the $50 accounts?
Perhaps you misread my post, or I was unclear. I was referring to the benefits that the old Flickr Pro account had over the old free Flickr account which more than justified the price of a Flickr Pro, and then comparing that to the difference in benefits between the new $50 account and the new free account. I was not at any point comparing the old Flickr Pro with the new $50 account, other than (before I learned that Flickr Pro accounts would be grandfathered) to observe that it seemed like that in order to retain stats and no adverts (like Flickr Pro had at $24.95) you appeared to need to pay $49.99, but as I said, I realise that is now not the case.
So, given AdBlock, what it comes down to is this; if I want to keep having stats I need to continue to pay $24.95 a year per account. And that is the only real benefit over getting a refund and going to a free account.
Edited by JonRB on Thursday 23 May 18:05
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