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Whatever happened to Flickr?

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Re: Whatever happened to Flickr?

#3

Post by pythonic_hell »

At the beginning of 2021 I completely move my life away from facebooks ecosystem. As a hobbies photographer I moved from Instagram to Flickr, I wish I had done it earlier!

Flickr as a tool is very focused on creators. Once you start using it you realize that the company isn't optimizing for clicks and content consumption. This results in a product and community who’s standard of quality is leagues ahead of anything else one the internet. The idea of “an influence” just doesn’t exist within Flickr. It actually reminds me a lot of the internet before the FAANG monopolies.

They’ve identified a niche in the market and they are now striving to serve that niche the best they can. IMO Flicker is a radical tech company operating complete counter to the omnipresent hyper growth “conquered the world” mindset that pervades tech. I think they would make a good case study of how to build an online community that doesn’t try to optimize for engagement.

Re: Whatever happened to Flickr?

#4

Post by karmakaze »

I have some passing awareness of Flickr. I worked a while at 500px. What I heard at the time was that photographers put their good work on Flickr, everything into Google photos, and their best examples on 500px.

I also remember (IIRC) that Flickr did a site redesign going white background rather than the 'light table' black background. I'm not their target user but that would have ended it for me.

My conclusion would be that Flickr could have co-existed with Google photos serving a more active/engaged audience but not if they want to have the same brand (most used, approachable white background, etc).

Re: Whatever happened to Flickr?

#5

Post by runjake »

karmakaze wrote: post #4

I have some passing awareness of Flickr. I worked a while at 500px. What I heard at the time was that photographers put their good work on Flickr, everything into Google photos, and their best examples on 500px. I also remember (IIRC) that Flickr did a site redesign going white background rather than the 'light table' black background. I'm not their target user but that would have ended it for me. My conclusion would…

I believe Flickr started off with a white background.

I also remember Flickr being an extremely popular site. Then, Yahoo acquired it. Then they started censoring it. Then they neglected it. Then Flickr became effectively a ghost town. Since then, apparently SmugMug has acquired it.

Re: Whatever happened to Flickr?

#7

Post by Jenk »

Used Flickr for years. Then Yahoo came along. Then the T&C's changed, transferring ownership of the photos to Flickr, not even attributing the photographers. Then they introduced fees.

I've not uploaded anything since Yahoo bought them.

Re: Whatever happened to Flickr?

#8

Post by neom »

"In 2007, Flickr was the most popular dedicated photo-sharing site on the web, and growing exponentially in terms of new images uploaded."

Uhm, as far as I remember it, Flickr never surpassed daily actives or daily uploads over DeviantART, not by a long shot. I'm quite sure the photo gallery did considerably more volume than Flickr.

Edit- shouldn't have used never: but in 2007 I don't believe that to be true.

Re: Whatever happened to Flickr?

#10

Post by sircastor »

I remember Flickr was tremendously popular. It has everything going for it. Anecdotally, one year my wife asked for a paid membership - that indicated to me that they were doing something right as my wife was pretty hesitant to spend money on a service like that.

I recall they sort of stopped developing and enhancing it. It died on the vine from neglect. I do recall when Yahoo bought it there was some talk of “fixing Flickr” but I don’t think it ever happened.

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