[kerneltime]

I am quite happy about this. I have been a paying user for a long time, after verizon bought yahoo, I scrambled to figure out an alternative plan. Flickr was my sole backup after my laptop.

Summary, use flickr/smugmug to host and share pics that are curated (get rid of unwanted pics when uploading there). Use iCloud (paid), Google(free) and client side encrypted amazon drive to backup all pics (yes 3 backups and I do not trust amazon's free picture tier not sure what they will do with it, already bitten by them changing plans). Yes, I know Google gets what it wants ability to process my pics.. sigh.

I want to have an honest relation with my service providers, I pay them for a service they give me and I am their customer. Not going to reiterate what has been said numerous times about not being a customer if the service is free..

Flickr is giving up on "growth at all costs and monetize later" model to "we have a good quality focused service but you have to pay..". I would rather pay. The only problem I am now paying for both flickr and smugmug..

[onethumb]

Thanks so much for being a customer and for the vote of confidence. We should figure out something for Flickr + SmugMug, pricing wise. Any ideas?

[davidcuddeback]

Business and pricing are not my areas of expertise, so feel free to ignore or improve on this idea. My suggestion is to use Flickr to upsell Portfolio and Pro SmugMug plans (maybe with a nominal discount of $1/mo for Portfolio and $2/mo for Pro). Flickr could be the place where photographers get feedback on their photos and improve their skills, and then SmugMug is where they build a more curated portfolio of photos to sell based on what resonates with people on Flickr. When a photographer has reached a tipping point of positive feedback on Flickr, they may feel ready to start selling their photos, and that's your opportunity to upsell an appropriate SmugMug plan.

Or if you're confident that you can identify photographers whose photos will sell based on engagement with their photos on Flickr, offer an introductory rate for the first year so they can test how well their photos sell. If they sell enough photos to cover the cost of an upgraded plan, paying for an ongoing plan is a no-brainer.

At least, that's my use case as a hobbyist. I currently pay for a basic SmugMug plan. I daydream of upgrading to a Portfolio plan to sell some photos (just for fun), but I don't know that I would manage to sell any. I'm now thinking Flickr might be a better place for me to start testing the water.

As an aside, thank you for removing the Yahoo login. That's been more of a barrier than you would expect for me every time I've wanted to use Flickr in the past. I don't use Yahoo for anything other than Flickr. I think I have more than one account, but I'm not sure, and I don't remember which account has my Flickr albums. It's just a mess. I'll definitely be giving Flickr another chance in January.

[onethumb]

Thank you for the thoughtful and detailed feedback. Lots to think about.

And you're welcome on Yahoo login. Hard at work, but should be soon. Definitely want to let people access Flickr in whatever way they prefer.

[kerneltime]

The price is annoyance but not hurting me.. what is hurting me usability, both Flickr and Smugmug can do better to serve me. If anything fix flickr’s Social experience and Smugmugs upload and stats reporting, as a basic paid tier I have no insights if my url only sharing pics are widely used or not, seems like a cheap tax to force me to upgrade just to see the number of views

[macintux]

Using Google's free service as a photo backup seems like a poor choice, since they will scale them down.

[kerneltime]

Agreed! But it is still a backup, 1 out if 3.. I trust Google’s backup more than others in case of a geographic disaster..