Flickr: The First and Last Great Photo Platform

Re:Flickr: The First and Last Great Photo Platform by Nrbelex on Sunday April 26, 2026 @01:11AM (#47907554)

Author here. Glad this made its way to you. I've been chatting with Shay and don't have a ton of questions, but I'd just emphasize that even as Flickr continues to (rightfully!) modernize, please (a) don't drop the features that make it different than the closed social media platforms (e.g., RSS, open APIs, etc.) and (b) maintain and enhance the power features that make Flickr more than just a place to dump photos (e.g., would love to see a camera AND lens combination finder, search by EXIF, enhancements to the world map, etc.). Very much looking forward to more modern file types.

And while I think the site strikes the balance decently at the moment, Pro is too expensive for ads to get more intrusive (for the Pro user and for others looking at his/her photos).

But as I hope was clear, I'm a big supporter and would love to see the platform continue to thrive. If you're ever looking to bounce thoughts off a user, or anything else, I'm happy to help!

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Re:Flickr: The First and Last Great Photo Platform by onethumb on Sunday April 26, 2026 @09:10AM (#47910040)

I'm too big of a nerd to let the RSS feeds, open APIs, etc go. :)

Alas, Flickr wouldn't even be alive if we hadn't increased the price ($$) and value (features) of Pro relative to things like intrusive ads on free accounts, etc. The very reason it's alive is because we have intrusive ads on free accounts, but no ads on Pro accounts, including for viewers. I don't expect that to change anytime soon.

We have some great plans to further increase Pro's value, but we disagree that Pro is too expensive. Relative to our peers, it's a bargain for unlimited storage, advertising free, etc etc.

Love to bounce future ideas off of you, and thanks for the article!

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Re:Flickr: The First and Last Great Photo Platform by Nrbelex on Sunday April 26, 2026 @09:34AM (#47910214)

I actually think we agree that the value proposition is currently there for pro, per what I laid out in the piece (though of course I look forward to things that will further increase its value). My comment was supposed to make clear that adding more ads to Pro could undermine that value—but it sounds like that's not the plan, which is great.

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Re:Flickr: The First and Last Great Photo Platform by onethumb on Sunday April 26, 2026 @10:38AM (#47910732)

We’re allergic to ads. If I knew how to make Flickr work at its scale without ads even on free accounts, I’d do it.

Since I can’t figure it out (yet?), free accounts have ads and Pro don’t. As long as I’m running the show, that will remain true.

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Re:Flickr: The First and Last Great Photo Platform by Tomte on Sunday April 26, 2026 @09:25AM (#47910146)

Is HEIC/HEIF support somewhere on the roadmap? I know people have been asking for years and you don‘t want to be a backup site, but display photos. But this whole conversion thing makes me uncomfortable anyway.

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Re:Flickr: The First and Last Great Photo Platform by onethumb on Sunday April 26, 2026 @10:40AM (#47910738)

I want this, too. SmugMug (our other platform) supports them. So we already have the tech done (for a long time). I hope we add support on Flickr.

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