Flickr limiting photos for free accounts, what about all the wonderful old photos?

[kingbuzzie]

I just got the news about flickr limiting photos for free accounts. I'm a little concerned, is that going to wipe out all the old film photos that people have built up over the years in all the photo specific groups (like specific cameras, film emulsions, etc). I'm pretty disappointed if that is the case.

 

[faberryman]

If individuals do not believe it is worth it to them to keep them up, then yes some photos will disappear.

 

[cmacd123]

owners of the site are hoping to convert large accounts into Paid account sit seems.

 

[nmp]

I just got the news about flickr limiting photos for free accounts. I'm a little concerned, is that going to wipe out all the old film photos that people have built up over the years in all the photo specific groups (like specific cameras, film emulsions, etc). I'm pretty disappointed if that is the case.

Still 1000 free photos. How many of the people that participate in those groups actually have that many photos...

 

[kingbuzzie]

Still 1000 free photos. How many of the people that participate in those groups actually have that many photos...

Me for sure. I use (used?) Flickr to backup my entire scanned photo database...

 

[MattKing]

Me for sure. I use (used?) Flickr to backup my entire scanned photo database...

Then you are going to have to consider paying for storage that up to now has been free.

 

[kingbuzzie]

Then you are going to have to consider paying for storage that up to now has been free.

Thanks, Captain Obvious.

 

[dpurdy]

I wish they would eliminate mine. I have no access to my account. I can't even get in to delete my images. I have tried and tried and tried and tried and tried and tried to get logged in but I am not allowed. A couple of years ago out of the blue my email carrier went out of business and I lost my access email. I have tried and tried and tried and tried and tried to contact someone but there is no one home. There is no technical backup. I wonder how many accounts are like mine. Not accessible to anyone. Just sitting there using space. I still get notices now and then of some new person following me. I need a good idea to make a new account and contact all the followers I have.
Dennis

 

[pdeeh]

I wish they would eliminate mine. I have no access to my account. I can't even get in to delete my images. I have tried and tried and tried and tried and tried and tried to get logged in but I am not allowed. A couple of years ago out of the blue my email carrier went out of business and I lost my access email. I have tried and tried and tried and tried and tried to contact someone but there is no one home. There is no technical backup. I wonder how many accounts are like mine. Not accessible to anyone. Just sitting there using space. I still get notices now and then of some new person following me. I need a good idea to make a new account and contact all the followers I have.
Dennis

Create a temporary account & login to flickr.
go to the help forums and ask about how to recover your account - with a bit of luck your details are on file still & you may yet be able to recover your account.

 

[pdeeh]

owners of the site are hoping to convert large accounts into Paid account sit seems.

Paid accounts only ever made up less than 10% of all the accounts on flickr, even when the limits on free accounts were much lower (it used to be 200 images - though if you went over that, you only saw the most recent 200 but the rest were retained, not deleted).

Presumably the new owners think this'll allow them to monetise Flickr.

I have my doubts. I think an awful lot of accounts will be abandoned - mine will be, and I've got thousands of snaps on there.

Shame. The film groups were often huge and really active (more so than APUG in many cases).

sigh.

 

[faberryman]

I think an awful lot of accounts will be abandoned - mine will be, and I've got thousands of snaps on there. Shame. The film groups were often huge and really active (more so than APUG in many cases).

The sense I get is that nobody thinks it's worth paying for.

 

[MattKing]

Thanks, Captain Obvious.

Do I get to be in the commercials?
Actually, I was trying to make a point rather than being unintentionally snarky.
I've never thought that flickr was intended to be a storage resource. I always thought it was intended to be a presentation and sharing resource.
And I've never been in favour of internet resources being free when there isn't a not-for-public public service benefit of doing so.
So it doesn't bother me that they are going to start charging for storage.
Maybe flickr should offer "gift a subscription" like Photrio does.

 

[macfred]

I have a fee required Pro account for about 10 years - price for 1 Year Flickr Pro subscription in 2017 was about $24,99 - current price for the 1 Year Pro subscription is $49,99.
It's just a little steep ...

 

[kingbuzzie]

My concern is Flickr is such an old and rich resource, hate to loose the pictures that are tied to the forums. I've learned a lot about film camera repair tips there, more than searching apug even.

 

[MattKing]

My concern is Flickr is such an old and rich resource, hate to loose the pictures that are tied to the forums. I've learned a lot about film camera repair tips there, more than searching apug even.

That makes sense.

 

[DDTJRAC]

I just got the news about flickr limiting photos for free accounts. I'm a little concerned, is that going to wipe out all the old film photos that people have built up over the years in all the photo specific groups (like specific cameras, film emulsions, etc). I'm pretty disappointed if that is the case.

That is the internet...impermanent.

Flickr banned me after a week and I lost a few hundred pix. Wiki Commons deleted all my photos after a year and lost them all.

Start transferring the Flickr pix to the Internet Archive.

Or make WordPress blogs. This is just the beginning. The next Flickr cut will be 500 pix max or you will have to pay.

 

[nmp]

Part of the rationale is the new owner does not want to undercut their own money-maker (SmugMug) by making Flickr easy and free to everyone. They also don't want to pay for others' back-up storage. Yahoo was in business to monetize the users from advertisements whereas the SmugMug is trying to get away from that model.

 

[removed account4]

this thread is kind reminds me of a local grocery store that gives coffee and tea to paying customers. there is this guy who
came in every day didn't buy anything and brought out 8-12 coffees a handful of 8oz cups of milk / packets of sugar
out to his construction crew buddies. eventually ( after weeks ) he was told to go to the local coffee shop and buy his coffee there.
i feel badly for some who can't afford it, but
it sounds like some of the 1000+ club might be able to pay the 14¢/day for the service ...

 

[jtk]

Smugmug. Good deal, real track record. No sniveling.
https://www.smugmug.com/plans/basic

 

[wyofilm]

Permanence begins and ends with the creator. If you care about your pics you will keep negatives (if you shoot film), prints, and scanned images in the cloud AND off line. It is a drag.

I went through a tortuous metastable period of dying computers, dying raid drives, Apple abandonment of Aperture, to preserve digital images that I wanted to preserve. Preservation even including me buying a Canon pro-10 printer to make 5x7 prints of pics (mainly of kids, family, places we've been) I really want my kids to have when I long gone.

Relying only on cloud storage alone will end badly for many.

 

[Helios 1984]

I don't know if you guys remember but, not so long ago, free accounts on Flickr were limited to 200 pictures.

 

[kingbuzzie]

In my day I walked uphill both ways to login to Flickr. Ugh... I wasn't upset really about the cost. There are a lot of film groups and forums, many years old with valuable info and pictures. I'm concerned that a lot of that will be lost. People move on but they left the pictures.

 

[wyofilm]

Just looked at the terms of Flickr's new policy. It seems pretty accommodating to me. Personally, I like the choice of services that charge a transparent fee. It gives the consumer some clout.

What clout does someone have with Facebook and all of the other free services out there? They will all extract their pound of flesh somehow.

 

[Alan Johnson]

Some archiving projects use Flickr to store their material, eg, https://alookback.net/
I hope that these will keep going and appreciate the work that has been done so far.

 

[warden]

Smugmug. Good deal, real track record. No sniveling.
https://www.smugmug.com/plans/basic

I guess I missed the sniveling part. Flickr and smugmug both look fine to me, and the price is similar but I don’t see a reason to change from one to the other.