Flickr , which operate on ads for free users , is basically a storage company . As SmugMug likes to emphasize , often , it pays for the blasted Amazon Web Services , and truly makes the case that you should too . “ Unlike chopine like Facebook , we also did n’t purchase it to invade your privacy and sell your datum , ” CEO Don MacAskill wrote in the e-mail .
“ It serves billions of photograph every single day , ” he pen . “ It ’s huge . It ’s a priceless gem for the whole world . And it cost money to operate . Lots of money . ” As of last year , Flickrclaimed to host over100 million unparalleled user .
MacAskill avowedly had no idea what he was signing up for when SmugMug purchase Flickr in 2018 . At the metre , he told USA Todaythat “ it sounds punch-drunk for the CEO not to all know what he ’s going to do , but we have n’t build SmugMug on a master plan either . We seek to hear to our customers and when enough of them ask for something that ’s important to them or to the community , we go and work up it . ”
Image: (Screenshot, Flickr)
The sum was unrevealed , but Verizon underling Oath seemed happy to offload it . “ We ’re thrilled for these two brands to do together to grow their photo sharing communities and continue to innovate for their members,”Oath toldUSA TODAY last class .
In 2004 , Yahoo ( before it was acquired by Verizon ) bought Flickr for about $ 22 to $ 25 million – crazily trashy compared to Myspace ’s $ 250 million 2007 purchase of Photobucket – andleft it to pine . PetaPixelwas optimisticabout the skill ; SmugMug is beloved by lensman so much that they ’re unforced to pay for it , andaccording toCrunchbase , it ’s profitable . The subscription - only service allow users to sell print via the situation for a 15 % commission .
month later , SmugMug foretell a mass deletion of photograph for Flickr users who did n’t bound for the $ 50 yearly Flickr Pro subscription , cutting their storage limit to 1,000 photograph . It was alurching cognitive operation , thoughnot all companies providethe courtesy of a warning .
Flickr rival Photobucket , which institutionalise $ 60 a year for 50 GB of storage and has n’t been heard from much since the aughts , still quietly be ( though at the time of this writing it ’s tweeting apologia for an outage ) .
Nobody like a guy asking you to hit up your friends for money , but at least he ’s being honest . And Flickr is more than just a topographic point for computer memory , it ’s also an important repository for creative commons images from which we all reap benefits .
SmugMug was not available for comment at publication clock time . you may study the full letter below , viaTechCrunch . exemption is n’t devoid .
Dear Flickr Pros ,
First , and above all else : give thanks you . give thanks you for being a part of our community . Thank you for caring about Flickr . give thanks you for supporting Flickr . give thanks you for being a Flickr Pro .
Two old age ago , Flickr was losing tens of meg of dollars a year . Our company , SmugMug , stepped in to rescue it from being exclude down and to save tens of billions of your precious photos from being erased .
Why ? We ’ve spent 17 years fondly building our company into a flourishing , family - possess and -operated clientele that cares deep about photographers . SmugMug has always been the place for photographers to showcase their photography , and we ’ve long admired how Flickr has been the community where they colligate with each other . We could n’t stomach by and watch Flickr vanish .
So we take a heavy peril , ill-treat in , and saved Flickr . Together , we created the world ’s largest lensman - focused community : a place where photographers can stand out and correspond in .
And yet , Flickr — the world ’s most - beloved , money - drop off business — still needs your help .
We ’ve been hard at employment improving Flickr . We lease an excellent , large staff of Support Heroes who now deliver support with an average customer gratification rating of above 90 % . We got rid of Yahoo ’s login . We moved the weapons platform and every photo to Amazon Web Services ( AWS ) , the manufacture leader in cloud computing , and modernized its technology along the way . As a result , Page are already 20 % quicker and photos load 30 % more quickly . Platform outage , including Pandas , are way down . Flickr continues to get faster and more static , and authoritative new features are being built once again .
Our work is never done , but we ’ve made tremendous progress .
Flickr still needs your assistant . It ’s still losing money . You , and hundreds of thousands of patriotic Flickr members stepped up and joined Flickr Pro , for which we are eternally grateful . It ’s losing a lot less money than it was . But it ’s not yet making enough .
We take more Flickr Pro fellow member if we want to keep the Flickr dream alive , and we need your aid to share the story of Flickr .
We did n’t buy Flickr because we think it was a immediate payment cow . Unlike platforms like Facebook , we also did n’t buy it to invade your privateness and betray your data . We buy it because we love lensman , we love photography , and we trust Flickr deserves not only to live on but flourish . We think the world jibe ; and we think the Flickr residential area does , too . But we can not continue to operate it at a passing as we ’ve been doing .
Flickr is the world ’s big photographer - focus residential district . It ’s the world ’s skillful fashion to bump great picture taking and connect with amazing photographers . Flickr host some of the world ’s most iconic , most priceless pic , freely available to the entire humanity . This community is home to more than 100 million accounts and tens of gazillion of photos . It serves one million million of pic every single Clarence Shepard Day Jr. . It ’s huge . It ’s a invaluable treasure for the whole human race . And it be money to operate . piles of money .
As you know , Flickr is the best economic value in photo communion anywhere in the world . Flickr Pro extremity get advertizement - liberal browsing for themselves and their visitors , forward-looking stats , unlimited full - quality storage for all their photos , plus agiotage feature film and access code to the human beings ’s largest lensman - focused residential area .
Please , help us spread the word . avail us make Flickr thrive . Help us ensure Flickr has a brilliant future . Every Flickr Pro subscription goes directly to keeping Flickr alive and make slap-up newfangled experiences for photographers like you . We are building quite a little of expectant things for the Flickr community of interests , but we need your aid . We can do this together .
We ’re launch our end - of - class Pro subscription campaign on Thursday , December 26 , but I want to give you a voucher code to share with friends , family line , or anyone who shares your love of photography and community so they can enjoy the same 25 % price reduction before the campaign starts .
We ’ve gone to great distance to optimize Flickr for price rescue wherever possible , but the increasing price of operating this tremendous community and continuing to clothe in its future will need a small price growth betimes in the Modern class , so this is truly the very best sentence to help everyone upgrade to a Pro membership .
If you value Flickr in the end being independent , built for photographers and by lensman , we need your aid .
With gratitude ,
Don MacAskill
Co - Founder , CEO & Chief Geek SmugMug + Flickr
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