Random Thoughts – Randocity!

While you may or may not be aware, if you’re a Flickr user, you should be. SmugMug bought Flickr and they’re increasing the yearly price by more than double. They’re also changing the free tier. Let’s explore.

Flickr Out

When Flickr came about under Yahoo, it was really the only photo sharing site out there. It had a vibrant community that cared about its users and it offered very good tools. It also offered a Pro service that was reasonably priced.

After Marissa Mayer took over Yahoo, she had the Flickr team redesign the interface, and not for the better. It took on a look and feel that was not only counter-intuitive, it displayed the photos in a jumbled mass that made not only the photos look bad, it made their interface look even worse.

The last time I paid for Pro service, it was for 2 years at $44.95, that’s $22.48 a year. Not a horrible price for what was being offered… a lackluster interface and a crappy display of my photos.

After SmugMug took over, it has done little to improve the interface. In fact, it is still very much the same as it was when it was redesigned and offers little in the way of improvements. We’re talking about a design of a product that started in 2004. In many ways, Flickr still feels like 2004 even with its current offerings.

Status Quo

While Flickr kept their pricing reasonable at about $23 a year, I was okay with that.. particularly with the 2 year billing cycle. I had no incentive to do anything different with the photos I already had in Flickr. I’d let them sit and do whatever they want. In recent months, I hadn’t been adding photos to that site simply because the viewership has gone way, way down. At one point, Flickr was THE goto photo service on the Internet. Today, it’s just a shell of what it once was. With Instagram, Tumblr and Pinterest, there’s no real need to use Flickr any longer.

A true Pro photographer can take their work and make money off of it at sites like iStockPhoto, Getty, Alamy and similar stock photo sites. You simply can’t sell your work on Flickr. They just never offered that feature for Pro users. Shit, for the money, Flickr was heavily remiss in not giving way more tools to the Pro users to help them at least make some money off of their work.

Price Increase

SmugMug now owns the Flickr property and has decided to more than double the yearly price. Instead of the once $44.95 every 2 years, now they want us to pay $50 a year for Pro service.

[RANT ON] So, what the hell SmugMug? What is it that you think you’re offering now that is worth more than double what Yahoo was charging Pro members before you took over Flickr? You’ve bought a 14 year old property. That’s no spring chicken. And you now expect us to shell out an extra $28 a year for an antiquated site? For what? Seriously, FOR WHAT?

We’re just graciously going to give you an extra $28 a year to pay for a 14 year old product? How stupid do you think we are? If you’re going to charge us $28 extra a year, you damned well better give us much better Pro tools and reasons to pay that premium. For example, offer tools that let us charge for and sell our photos as stock photos right through the Flickr interface. You need to provide Pro users with a hell of a lot more service for that extra $28 per year than what you currently offer.

Unlimited GB? Seriously? It already was unlimited. Photos are, in general, small enough not to even worry about size.

Advanced stats? They were already there. It’s not like the stats are useful or anything.

Ad-free browsing? What the hell? How is this even a selling point? It’s definitely not worth an extra $28 per year.

10 minutes worth of video? Who the hell uses Flickr for video? We can’t sell them as stock video! You can’t monetize the videos, so you can’t even make money that way! What other reason is there to use Flickr for video? YouTube still offers nearly unlimited length video sizes AND monetization (if applicable). Where is Flickr in this process? Nowhere.

Flickr is still firmly stuck in 2004 with 2004 ideals and 2004 mentality. There is no way Flickr is worth $50 a year. It’s barely worth $20 a year. [RANT MOSTLY OFF]

New Subscribers and Pro Features

Granted, this is pricing grandfathered from Yahoo. If you have recently joined Flickr as a Pro user, you’re likely paying $50 a year. 50 US dollars per year, I might add that’s entirely not worth it.

Let’s understand what you (don’t) get from Flickr. As a Pro user, you’re likely purchasing into this tier level to get more space and storage. But, what does that do for you other than allowing you to add more photos? Nothing. In fact, you’re paying Flickr for the privilege of letting them advertise on the back of your photo content.

Yes, you read that right. Most people searching Flickr are free tier users. Free tier viewers get ads placed onto their screens, including on your pages of content. You can’t control the ads they see or that your page might appear to endorse a specific product, particularly if the ad is placed near one of your photos. Ads that you might actually be offended by. Ads that make Flickr money, but that Flickr doesn’t trickle back into its paying Pro users. Yes, they’re USING your content to make them money. Money that they wouldn’t have had without your content being there. Think about that for a moment!

Advertising on your Content

Yes, that’s right, you’re actually paying Flickr $50 for the privilege of allowing them to place ads onto your page of content. What do they give you in return? Well, not money to be sure. Yes, they do give you a larger storage limit, but that’s effectively useless. Even the biggest photos don’t take much space… not nearly as much space as a YouTube video. Flickr knows that. SmugMug now hopes the Pro users don’t see the wool being pulled over their eyes. Yet, do you see YouTube charging its channels for the privilege of uploading or storing content? No! In fact, if your channel is big enough, YouTube will even share ad revenue with you. Yahoo, now SmugMug, has never shared any of its ad revenue with its users, let alone Pro users. Bilking… that’s what it is.

On the heels of that problem, Flickr has never offered any method of selling or licensing your photos within Flickr. If ever there was  ‘Pro’ feature that needed to exist, it would be selling / licensing photos.. like Getty, like iStockPhotos, like Alamy… or even like Deviant Art (where you can sell your photos on canvas or mousepads or even coffee mugs). Instead, what has Flickr done in this area? NOTHING.. other than the highly unpopular and horrible redesign released in 2013 which was entirely cosmetic (and ugly at that)… and which affected all users, not just Pro. Even further, what as SmugMug done for Flickr? Less than nothing… zip, zero, zilch, nada. Other than spending money to acquire Flickr, SmugMug has done nothing with Flickr… and it shows.

Free Tier Accounts

For free tier users, SmugMug has decided to limit the maximum number of uploaded photos to 1000. This is simply a money making ploy. They assume that free tier users will upgrade to Pro simply to keep their more than 1000 photos in the account. Well, I can’t tell you what to do with your account, but I’ve already deleted many photos to reduce my photo count below 1000. I have no intention of paying $50 a year to SmugMug for the “privilege” of monetizing my photos. No, thanks.

If you are a free tier user, know that very soon they will be instituting the 1000 photo limit. This means that you’ll either have to upgrade or delete some of your photos below 1000.

Because the Flickr platform is now far too old to be considered modern, I might even say that it’s on the verge of being obsolete… and because the last upgrade that Marissa had Yahoo perform on Flickr made it look like a giant turd, I’m not willing to pay Flickr / SmugMug $50 a year for that turd any longer. I’ve decided to get off my butt and remove photos, clean up my account and move on. If SmugMug decides to change their free tier further, I’ll simply move many of my photos over to DeviantArt where there are no such silly limits and then delete my Flickr account entirely.

If enough people do this, it will hurt SmugMug bad enough to turn that once vibrant Flickr community into a useless wasteland, which honestly it already is. I believe that outcome will actually become a reality anyway in about 2 years.

SmugMug

This company is aptly named, particularly after this Flickr stunt. They’re definitely smug about their ability bilk users out of their money without delivering any kind of useful new product. It would be entirely one thing if SmugMug had spent 6-12 months and delivered a full features ad revenue system, a stock photo licensing tool and a store-front to sell the photos on shirts, mugs and canvas. With all of these additions, $50 a year might be worth it, particularly if SmugMug helped Flickr users promote and sell their photos.

Without these kinds of useful changes, $50 is just cash without delivering something useful. If all you want to do is park your images, you can do that at Google, at Tumblr, at Pinterest, at Instagram and several other photo sharing sites just like Flickr. You can even park them at Alamy and other sites and make money from your photographic efforts.

Why would you want to park them at Flickr / SmugMug when they only want to use your photos to make money from advertising on a page with your content? It just doesn’t make sense. DeviantArt is actually a better platform and lets you sell your photos on various types of media and in various sizes.

Email Sent to Support

Here’s an email I sent to Flickr’s support team. This email is in response to Margaret who claims they gave us “3 years grace period” for lower grandfathered pricing:

Hi Margaret,

Yes, and that means you’ve had more than ample time to make that $50 a year worth it for Pro subscribers. You haven’t and you’ve failed. It’s still the same Flickr it was when I was paying $22.48 a year. Why should I now pay over double the price for no added benefits? Now that SmugMug has bought it, here we are now being forced to pay the $50 a year toll when there’s nothing new that’s worth paying $50 for. Pro users have been given ZERO tools to sell our photos on the platform as stock photos. Being given these tools is what ‘Pro’ means, Margaret. We additionally can’t in any way monetize our content to recoup the cost of our Pro membership fees. Worse, you’re displaying ads over the top our photos and we’re not seeing a dime from that revenue.

Again, what have you given that makes $50 a year worth it? You’re really expecting us to PAY you $50 a year to show ads to free users over the top of our content? No! I was barely willing to do that with $22.48 a year. Of course, this will all fall on deaf ears because these words mean nothing to you. It’s your management team pushing stupid efforts that don’t make sense in a world where Flickr is practically obsolete. Well, I’m done with using a 14 year old decrepit platform that has degraded rather than improved. Sorry Margaret, I’ve removed over 2500 photos, cancelled my Pro membership and will move back to the free tier. If SmugMug ever comes to its senses and actually produces a Pro platform worth using (i.e., actually offers monetization tools or even a storefront), I might consider paying. As it is now, Flickr is an antiquated 14 year old platform firmly rooted in a 2004 world. Wake up, it’s 2018! The iStockphotos of the world are overtaking you and offering better Pro tools.

Bye.

Reasons to Leave

With this latest stupid pricing effort and the lack of effort from SmugMug, I now firmly have a reason to leave Flickr Pro. As I said in my letter above, I have deleted over 2500 photos from Flickr which is now below 1000 photos (the free tier level). After that, it will remain on free tier unless SmugMug decides to get rid of that too. If that happens, I’ll simply delete the rest of the photos and the account and move on.

I have no intention of paying a premium for a 14 year old site that feels 14 years old. It’s 2004 technology given a spit and polish shine using shoelaces and chewing gum. There’s also no community at Flickr, not anymore. There’s really no reason to even host your photos at Flickr. It’s antiquated by today’s technology standards. I also know that I can’t be alone in this. Seriously, paying a huge premium to use a site that was effectively designed in 2004? No, I don’t think so.

Oh, well, it was sort of fun while it lasted. My advice to SmugMug…

“Don’t let the door hit you on the way out!” Buh Bye. Oh and SmugMug… STOP SENDING ME EMAILS ABOUT THIS ‘CHANGE’.

If you’re a Flickr Pro subscriber, I think I’ve made my thoughts clear. Are you willing to pay this price for a 14 year old aging photo sharing site? Please leave a comment below.

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