Flickr May Be in Financial Trouble

[Clix Pix]

Apparently things are not going all that well for Flickr....they aren't getting the number of paid accounts they had hoped for and the CEO has written a message to members:

Flickr CEO Appeals to Users to Save the Platform, Admits Huge Financial Losses

The CEO of SmugMug and Flickr has emailed users of the latter site, requesting they sign up for Pro accounts as a means of saving the platform. In the unusually candid message, he refers to Flickr as a “money-losing business” and admits some years, the loss was as great as “tens of millions of...

fstoppers.com

 

[Apple fanboy]

Apparently things are not going all that well for Flickr....they aren't getting the number of paid accounts they had hoped for and the EO has written a message to members:

Flickr CEO Appeals to Users to Save the Platform, Admits Huge Financial Losses

The CEO of SmugMug and Flickr has emailed users of the latter site, requesting they sign up for Pro accounts as a means of saving the platform. In the unusually candid message, he refers to Flickr as a “money-losing business” and admits some years, the loss was as great as “tens of millions of...

fstoppers.com

I got that begging letter to. I have to be honest I’ve more or less abandoned my Flickr account. When accounts with no photos are achieving 100’s of followers, or the constant trolling to gain followers I’m not that interested.
Then there is the time outs that happen when trying to access your page.
It doesn’t know whether it wants to be Instagram or a serious photography site in my opinion.

 

[Hughmac]

I jumped ship to SmugMug earlier this year but I am still gettting likes and followers on my dormant Flickr account.

Cheers

Hugh

 

[stillcrazyman]

I haven't had a Flickr account in many years. SmugMug has been my hosting site for the last several years. I think when they bought Flickr, they were hoping to revive a 'brand' and make a social site. I think those days are gone though. Folks seem to want instagram and whatever else is popular at the moment.
Community isn't important for that sort of social media environment.

 

[mollyc]

Flickr hasn’t done well for years. This isn’t new. It’s just the smugmug people hope to turn it around.

 

[Clix Pix]

For some reason I never really liked Flickr, even in the early days, and instead first had an account with SmugMug and then later switched to Zenfolio, with which I've been quite happy ever since. If people want a social aspect to sharing their photos, it seems as though Instagram and Facebook seem to be taking on that role. I won't be surprised if in another year or so Flickr disappears altogether; not sure how SmugMug itself is doing these days, as it's been years since I have had an account there.

 

[tizeye]

When they wrote a very aggressive Terms of Service and copyright capturing, I backed away. I hear they tamed the original TOS but don't care to go back.

 

[bunnspecial]

It doesn’t know whether it wants to be Instagram or a serious photography site in my opinion.

Funny thing-in a thread on MR earlier today, I was told that Instagram was the "most important photo site in the world"...so I guess if a certain member here is to be believed that's what they should try for rather than being a "serious" photography site.

I admit to never REALLY having cared for the UI on Flickr and never got into it.

 

[Ericdjensen]

Makes sense. I forgot they even existed

 

[MacNut]

Yahoo really killed Flickr and I don't know if SmugMug can save it. It might just be too far gone. Instagram is a flavor of the month. At some point Facebook will kill it the same way Yahoo ruined Flickr.

 

[robgendreau]

Be a shame if SmugMug can't save Flickr. As they note, one of the biggest repositories of photos in the world, as well as discussion. Nothing really like it, and I doubt there will be again, as more sites are like either SmugMug/Zenfolio/500px or IG.

And Yahoo's mismanagement left a bad impression with lots, as comments bear out, and those folks don't seem to want to give it another chance. Although if you do, note they've already changed some things significantly for the better, especially the log in and free offering.

 

[MacNut]

Be a shame if SmugMug can't save Flickr. As they note, one of the biggest repositories of photos in the world, as well as discussion. Nothing really like it, and I doubt there will be again, as more sites are like either SmugMug/Zenfolio/500px or IG.

And Yahoo's mismanagement left a bad impression with lots, as comments bear out, and those folks don't seem to want to give it another chance. Although if you do, note they've already changed some things significantly for the better, especially the log in and free offering.

Flickr can not survive as an unlimited photo service. People got spoiled with it and will leave over it.

 

[Ray2]

I’ve considered Flickr for a year now. Every month or so I check it out to see if I want to use it. Frankly, as a photographer, I would prefer if they separated illustrations from photography. I’d like to see a lot fewer Pandas. I’m not impressed by pages that fail to load. I’d like to see consistently quick page loading when they do load. Pay for the shape it’s in today? No thank you.

 

[MacNut]

I decided to grab a paid subscription. For the price it seems like a decent deal.

 

[needfx]

well, if anything following flickr's message, was to request a link with all my data/photos to download just to be on the safe side. There are versions uploaded that cannot find in my ever-growing hdd collection

 

[sean000]

I've been a Smugmug user for many years. I also had a Flickr account from the very beginning, but kind of abandoned it. I was shocked when I first read that Smugmug would be taking over Flickr. My first thought was, "why would you buy a platform whose time has passed?" I know they said they didn't acquire Flickr because it was a golden opportunity, but of course they hoped to revive it enough to keep it sustainable and thriving. There is something to be said for saving and maintaining the vast archive of photos on Flickr.

Personally I think Flickr is a much better photo sharing network than Instagram or Facebook. Instagram looks terrible on anything other than a smartphone, and it crops your photos if they don't match their limited aspect ratio set. At least Facebook displays higher resolution photos in whatever aspect ratio you want, and works on all devices. The issue of course is that Instragram and Facebook are where the most people are. Nobody is going to convince longtime Facebook and IG users that they need to switch to something better (even Google failed at that attempt), but maybe the younger people who avoid FB and IG can be convinced. Then again that demographic is more mesmerized by the fleeting nature of Snapchat and TikTok (they've probably moved on from those as well, but I'm too old to know).

Smugmug has at least carved out a nice niche of serving photography enthusiasts and professionals. Their service still appeals to the likes of me, but I hope they can survive cutting their losses with Flickr if they can't make it sustainable. Makes me kind of want to create a new premium Flickr account just to support them, but I already pay for a Smugmug Power-Plan account.

 

[ericgtr12]

Funny thing-in a thread on MR earlier today, I was told that Instagram was the "most important photo site in the world"...so I guess if a certain member here is to be believed that's what they should try for rather than being a "serious" photography site.

I admit to never REALLY having cared for the UI on Flickr and never got into it.

I think there is a place for both, I personally use SmugMug as my real gallery for all HQ/large photos, etc but for the social media aspect I use Instagram as a means to getting my photos out there. Unfortunately, they've made it so even when using hashtags, it still only reaches a limited number of people unless you advertise, which I have done a couple of times.