Flickr
On April 23rd I received an email announcing that Flickr has agreed to be acquired by SmugMug. I was informed that nothing would change immediately with regard to my Flickr account.
On September 19th I received an email notice that my 1 Year Flickr Pro subscription would renew on October 19th at the current price of $49.99 billed annually. I had been a Flickr Pro subscriber since October 2008 and had paid $24.95 annually for the subscription. The last time Flickr changed Pro pricing was when it re-introduced Flickr Pro at $49.99 in July 2015. At that time Flickr rewarded Pro members with a promise of a two-year protected price. The current subscription price of $49.99 is not an increase in price. Flickr is merely bringing grandfathered Flickr Pro members to the current Pro rate. It was nice, as a Flickr Pro customer for a number of years, to be grandfathered in 2015 for 2 years at the price I had been paying ($24.95).
As of September 19th a Flicker Pro account provided unlimited, full-resolution uploads; ad-free browsing for both myself and my visitors; advanced stats; industry discounts including 15% off Adobe Creative Cloud; the Flickr Auto-Uploader that allows me to automatically back up my photographs both on my computer and on my Apple devices.
A Flickr Free account at that time provided 1TB full-resolution uploads. In September I was using only .22 TB of storage. Once I reached the 1TB storage limit, there was nothing stopping me from opening another Flickr Free account and making use of the 1TB full-resolution uploads. A Flickr Free account did not include ad-Free browsing, advanced stats, an auto-uploaded or industry discounts. None of the limitations of a Flickr Free account bothered me. At first I thought the Adobe Creative Cloud discount of 30% would be useful. The discount is for the more expensive Adobe CC plan (approx. $50/month) that includes programs I have no use for.
I cancelled my Flickr Pro subscription on September 19th. I would get along fine with the Flickr Free account.
Not having a Flickr Pro subscription was short lived. On or about November 1st Flickr announced a change that would directly impact me. Beginning January 8, 2019, free accounts will be limited to 1,000 photos and videos. Flickr Pro will continue to provide unlimited storage. I have several thousands more pictures and videos than the 1000 picture limit of a Flickr Free account. Additionally the photographs contained in this blog are linked to Flickr. It would be an impossible task for me to remove thousands of pictures from Flickr and maintain my blog and Flickr connection.
I renewed my Flickr Pro subscription on November 1st. I am certain there will come a time when my blog will no longer exist. I can’t see myself (or my heirs) paying indefinitely for Flickr Pro and my WordPress blog. Until that time arrives, though, it is business as usual!
I obtained the following screen shots from Flickr.
The Beauty Around Us 
5 Responses to “Flickr”
Well—sounds like you didn’t have much choice except to go to Flickr Pro…. Seems as if every time we get used to something which works great for us, they change it!!!! I guess it is just the ‘nature of the beast’….Fun Fun…
Good Luck… Hope they don’t change it again for you.
Hugs,
Betsy
One of the reasons I migrated from Blogger to WordPress is that I feared that Google would one day delete their blogging platform and all of my work would be lost. Google has a track record for deleting products and services.
For additional backup, I posted my work on Google Plus — Google’s social platform. Google has announced that they will end Google Plus because it failed to attract Facebook users. If Google Plus was all I had then years of work would be simply deleted.
Those of us who use Flickr, Instagram or any similar platform need to be aware of these issues and make sure your work is stored and secure on a hard drive or in the Cloud. Back up is essential.
Hello, I paid for the Flickr Pro today with the discount they offered. I have over 20,000 photos from 2009 up this now and I did not want them deleted. I just feel they did not have to double the price, they are being greedy. I think soon Blogger will start charging a fee to keep our blogs going.
Thanks for the heads up. It sounds as if we are going to keep paying more and more in order to share our photos.
Thanks for the heads up… I have to get more aggressive about removing all my photos from Flickr