Warning: Flickr has been sold

by crice63 Sat Apr 21, 2018 1:39 pm

The photo sharing site Flickr has been sold to the privately owned photo site SmugMug. If you, like me, have stored and linked your photos from Flickr, there may be cause for concern. What reason could a company have for purchasing a dying platform? The only assets Flickr has to speak of are its users and their store of photos. One way to quickly monetize those photos is to hold them hostage the same way photobucket recently did. The CEO of SmugMug was quoted as saying he didn’t really know what the company’s plan for Flickr was, but I find that disingenuous. Here is a quote from a today’s USA Today story:

“ in an industry that dangles free services to suck up people’s personal information to target ads, SmugMug has catered to people who are willing to pay for privacy and storage, offering four levels of subscriptions to appeal to everyday shutterbugs and professional photographers alike.”

I’m guessing that a business founded on (and profitable from) subscription services will not be giving away free hosting any longer. Users have been given a month to agree to the SmugMug usage terms or delete their accounts. I read the usage terms last night and they give no hint of an upcoming cash grab from people like us, but I’m nonetheless wary. I suggest Flickr users start to think about what they will do in case of a photobucket repeat.