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So I've had a Flickr for a while, and not just for the free terabyte - I just started using that about a year and a half ago. But it's now a pretty ingrained part of my life, particularly using the Flickr app pretty much like my photo gallery. I've got tens of thousands of photos there, and I've encouraged my friends to use it too because it's a great app, the uploading works fast and well, and it's better designed and easier to use than other photo apps in my opinion. The rapid phase-out period unnerves me, personally. If I hadn't seen it, and bam, all but 1000 of my tens of thousands of photos were deleted, I don't know what I'd do. Yes, I know, have backups - but moving and organizing tens of thousands of photos takes time and energy. I've also got miscellaneous friends and family that I now have to tell about this change, to download their photos and keep them somewhere else. I just wish there was a cheaper option for those of us who want to keep our photos on Flickr. $50/year is pretty high; you can get a 1TB hard drive for $38 on Amazon. If there was some kind of intermediate tier I'd really appreciate it. I know that you want to increase community engagement, and I think that's a noble goal, but consider this: you've got a great photo tool, and some people want to use it for their own personal photos without engaging in the community. In my experience, the uploadr works faster and better than Google Photos or other apps I've tried, and I prefer the interface to other apps. Why not just charge what it costs to run? According to Backblaze [0] disk space now costs them about 2 cents/gigabyte. So about $20 for a terabyte. Now I realize there are costs associated of course - bandwidth etc, maintenance, whatnot - but I'm sure you could profitably offer a limited plan for less than what the current Pro plan costs. In any case, good luck with Flickr, I'm rooting for you guys. |
Quick survey of cloud storage pricing:
Dropbox personal 1TB: $120 / TB / year
Google "One" 2TB: $100 / TB / year
Microsoft OneDrive 1TB: $ 70 / TB / year
Apple iCloud 2TB: $ 60 / TB / year ($120/year)
Flickr "unlimited": $ 50 / year
So, I think Flickr pricing seems in-line (and significantly cheaper than Dropbox.) Of course it depends a bit on what unlimited really means in practice.