[Atomus]

I don't get it, Pinterest is an enabler for photographers and artist. I never go to Flickr, could care less, but if I see something of interest on Pinterest (or any other sharing site), I would actually make the effort to go to Flickr and check it out. If I really like what I see from said artist/photographer, I would perhaps consider purchasing some of their work to display in my home. If not, by sharing what I saw, I potentially gave that artist a ton more eyeballs on their work, thus increasing their chances of people buying their artwork. The benefits far outweigh the disadvantages of sharing IMHO

[courage]

The benefits of share most likely do outweigh disadvantages for most people, most of the time. The whole point of putting photos on Flickr is that you can share them with other people. However, Flickr also gives its users the opportunity to specify access controls on their photos as well. Being able to control who sees, and who shares photos is another reason to use Flickr. As both an engineer and a photographer, I greatly prefer a system that puts its users in control, rather than forcing everyone into a single path that the designers believe is in their best interest.

[icebraining]

"Illusion of control". It's more a way to tell the user that the photographer doesn't want it to be shared than an actual control.