Do you still have Flickr Pro?
I got an email from Flickr the other day that my Flickr Pro expires next month. I didn’t even realize I still had it. I thought it expired back in October for some reason, because that’s when I used to pay it every year. Somehow it was extended to February. Anyhow, I’m wondering if I should keep it. I did some investigating and I believe these are the only benefits I could find about Flickr Pro at the moment:
- No Ads – Ads don’t really bother me so much so I am not sure if this is something that will really affect me. Do you see the ads on flickr? Are they really huge and do they get in the way of the photo viewing experience?
- Detailed statistics – I have heard with a free account you don’t get any statistics at all. Not that I actually even look at my flickr stats that often, but I’d like to think that if I ever did want to know, they would be there. Do you get any kind of statistics with your free account?
- Unlimited Storage – Pro users have unlimited storage and free accounts have 1TB which is 1024GB which is an insane amount. I’ve been on flickr since July of 2007, uploaded 3122 pictures and have only used 0.0028TB so far. I can’t really see myself going over that for a very long time.
- Pro accounts no longer available – Since Pro accounts are no longer available, only to people who already had a pro account before May 30, 2013, I feel like if I give it up now, I may regret not being able to have it later.
- It’s only $25 – Why am I even thinking about it for such a small amount? I can just renew and get it over with but I guess it’s the principle. If the free accounts are getting almost the same, what’s the point of holding on to it? And in the future, if I do want to switch back to a paid account, the paid accounts are now $50 or $500.
All so confusing to me. The other features such as replacing images and such are all available to free members as well. So I know it seems like a simple answer, I should just get rid of it, but I’m still not 100% sure. So I wanted to know, do you still have a Flickr Pro account? Why or why didn’t you get rid of it?
I decided to break out one of my favorite skins from last year, Glance Anais. When I put this dress on from House of Fox, I knew I needed a rich and gorgeous skin. I really feel like that in this one. The dress is beautiful and currently available at Collabor88. At first I wasn’t sure how the pointy shoulder would look on me, but when I tried it on, I felt so sophisticated and glamorous. Head down to Collabor88 and try on a demo.
Credits:
Skin: Glance Skins – Anais – December – Brown Brows – Small Cleavage by Ava Grau
*Eyes: IKON Promise Eyes – Hazel by Ikon Innovia (@ FaMESHed)
Eyelashes: *MC* “Falsies” by Freya Olivieri
Hair: [LeLutka]-NEU hair (S) – Bournville by Thora Charron
*Dress: Color.Me.H.O.F Mesh [Victoria Dress[Bronze]_S by Fashionboi Landar (@ Collabor88)
*Bracelet: [MANDALA] UTAMARO bracelet/female/COFFEE Brown Gold Metal by kikunosuke Eel
*Earrings: [MANDALA] DNA _Gold by kikunosuke Eel
*Ring: MG – Ring – Royal Khadijah Estate – Small – GOLD by Maxi Gossamer (@ FaMESHed)
*Mesh Hands: Slink Avatar Enhancement Hands – Elegant1 by Siddean Munro
*Nail Appliers: A:S:S – SLINK avatar enhancement system nails – The Deep by Photos Nikolaidis
*Pose: Di’s Opera by Di Hoorenbeek
I still have Flickr Pro, and my renewal is in a few months.
$25 isn’t going to kill me, and I’m nowhere near the limit either.
Since I’m not really marketing anything, statistics doesn’t help much.
Although it is kinda neat to watch the Favorites build.
-ls/cm
Never had one; never really saw the point in it..mostly because I forget about Flickr all the time, and I actually hate having to organize bunches of photos. It takes too long, so I really only remember to add anything to it every once in a while. I suppose that’s bad for a blogger, but I have the laze, and I don’t apologize for it.
Viva la laziness!
I also kept my FlickrPro. I despise ads of all kinds, avoid them at all costs. I’m not much into stats either (although I did start to recently pay more. I like the unlimited storage deal – I upload a lot at times, because I’m using it for SL and my real life photos as well. The $25 is minor in the grand scheme of things.
BTW that skin and dress are fab!
Actually, I auto-renew with them but not so long ago they issued me a refund for the $25. No idea what is going on there to be honest with you, cause it still says I am a Pro account. Considering the lack of any major limitations as a free user, I say why pay?
Kept my pro account. Too afraid something might change in the future with free ones and I dont want to regret letting it go. Its only $25 bucks, its not gonna kill me.
I kept mine, since it’s on auto-renewal anyway. As others have said, $25 isn’t too much for one year, especially when I consider how much I spend on SL, what with tier and shopping.
If you decide to switch to a free account, the ads can easily be blocked by a browser extension such as AdBlock Plus, or a good HOSTS file if you know how to use those. I use both together, and I haven’t seen an ad anywhere online for years. In fact, I didn’t even know there were ads on the main SL website until I saw other people writing about it!
I had a flickr pro account and it expired. I did not renew it.
I am not sure what ads are you talking about because I haven’t seen such on flickr. Each photo shows how many views, favorites and comments you have so it’s not completely without statistics. Since I got rid of my pro account I don’t see any difference at all.
And finally but not last, you are so gorgeous !!! STOP BEING SO DAMN AWESOME AND BEAUTIFUL !! 😀
I love that dress on you <33
I didn’t renew mine and the only thing that I noaticed different is the lack of global status, but each pic still has number of favs and comments, so I really don’t regret it 🙂
My Flickr Pro account expired and I didn’t renew. I don’t see any ads and there’s plenty of storage so I didn’t see the point for my purposes. Those are FABULOUS photos!
I’ve had so many problems with flickr! Weirdly, they didn’t even ask me to renew my “Pro.” So I guess I don’t have it anymore. Before they transformed with the 1TB and all that, Pro accounts could have lots of Sets & Collections and the free accounts were very limited. I haven’t paid too much attention since I can barely get Yahoo / Flickr to let me log in these days, but I take it that they’ve dumped that distinction, therefore the difference may be small now. I guess if they’d asked I would have renewed for the small amount, but since the service has been so painful for me to use I’m sort of glad I’m not contributing to the bad experience.
Hi Berry!
I was also confused when I was automatically charged for my pro account as I had thought it was less expensive ($12) than that for some reason… Well, as they say, the first thing to go is the mind… 😉
…Anyway, I did call them to clarify, however, and they do extend our subscriptions 3 months (I believe that’s what he said) beyond the expiration date…so I actually had more months given to me…as I believe we all are given.
I too really am sick of ads everywhere, and I also upload photos from both my real life and Second Life experiences, so I don’t want to take the chance of running out of space there….so that $25 is worth it to me too.
I don’t know if you ever submit pics of your rl to Flickr, but if you do both sl and rl, it’s worth it to not have to worry.
Love your blog and amazing photography…keep up the good work…
….and once in awhile, please sit down, put your feet up, and have a nice glass of wine and RELAX, for heaven’s sake!!! 😉
I let mine auto-renew, I agree that $25 isn’t bad for a whole year, and I never know if they’ll make changes to the free accounts that would make me regret it if I let the pro expire. Besides, it’s fun to look at the stats and see what my most viewed pics are.
As someone who has never had nor wanted Flickr Pro, here are some things to consider:
ADs: If ads are something you’re worried about, there are plenty of other methods in blocking them aside from paying for Flickr Pro (for me, I’m using Firefox and the addon Adblock Plus that blocks ads all across the web, not just Flickr).
Detailed statistics: If you don’t really check them to begin with, the likelihood of “well if I ever do” is minimal. For me, I’m just curious about the total views on my most recent images, which I can see as a free user by viewing each image. Knowing how many people are looking now is more important than how many people have looked in the past 🙂 And, I’m not very big on the numbers and random info either, it’s just nice to see that someone is interested hehe If you’re heavy into marketing and all that stuff, then it might be useful, but you’ve already stated you never really look at them anyways.
Unlimited Storage: You already answered this one yourself 🙂
Pro accounts no longer available: Worrying about the what ifs of the future often prevents us from moving forward and letting go of things that are no longer needed and/or useful. Is the service actually helpful in some way, or is it just you worrying about the what ifs that may never happen? And, if by some random chance, they do happen, would it really be that big of an issue? Would you really feel that bad and be all “oh, why did I let this go, I’m such an idiot!”? Somehow, I doubt it 🙂
It’s only $25: To some, $25 is a lot of money 😛 However, I do understand the concern about the cost changing in the future. Yet that would only bug me if the service was still… in service hehe Remember, Pro is no longer available. It’s not a feature they even offer any more. Services companies no longer offer aren’t going to be given upgrades, changes in price, or even much attention really. Honestly, and sorry to be so cynical even if it is probably true, I see them hoping that people will worry, as you are, and keep their account just in case, which means Flickr brings in revenue without ever having to do much of anything. Besides, with everything they have given to free users, I can’t imagine what services they would offer to incur a charge worthy of $50-$500. Sites like Flickr pull in most of their revenue from ads, which is why the only service they do offer now, ad removal, is so damn expensive at $50. I would imagine they merged Free and Pro together, for the most part, so they could implement this more expensive ad removal service and thus increase their revenue since more people would now have to deal with the ads as it would be too expensive to remove them. Again, being cynical, but it does have some merit.
Aside from all that, there are a couple things about Flickr Pro that you missed, which I found across the web:
1. Pro users can replace photos (without having to reupload) and archive high-resolution original images.
2. In addition to unlimited storage and bandwidth, Pro members will be able to take advantage of the new upload limits. That means that photos can now be up to 200MB in size and 1GB per video.
Other things to consider, but I don’t think you’d really take advantage of them. How often do you even make 200MB images? 😛 Either way, that’s just my two cents on the matter. Hope it helped give you an outsiders look at things, and I hope it turns out to be an easy decision in the end 😀
My RL photo stream is free and best I can tell there aren’t any ads to see. but everything is a feed notification, so as you scroll down it tells you who is following you, when someone commented, etc.
Even though I had $25 to spare at the time my Pro account was due to renew I chose not to do so. With 1TB of storage and so many other free options, I felt the value was poor.
One difference that I have noticed is in the ad-free experience; for example if you have a pro account you don’t see any ads but also everyone who is viewing your stream/profile/photos has the same ad-free experience. Who can guarantee that one day Flickr won’t become flooded with ads?
That is the only thing I could think of, to keep my pro account. I still have it and don’t plan to switch to a free one, just because:)
I’ve never even really used my Pro account, at some point I just upgraded to Pro so I’d have access to all my photos that I was transferring to the cloud. When it was about to expire I wasn’t sure if I should keep it either, but I ultimately decided that for just $44.95 for two years I’d rather be safe than sorry. If you’re serious about your photos, I think it’s worth paying a little money for the service.
Ah well… I thought a long time about it. But in end I canceled my Pro subscription now. I am not a photographer and use it for SL photos only. The stats were nice, but I can live without. Only thing I am worried about are the Ads. Hope my AdBlocker will work well. I will notice in 2 days.. lol
I still have Pro and its active until September of 2015. I will most likely let it go when it expires. I have the free account for my real life photos and don’t see much difference. I do use an ad blocker – so ads are not an issue. And other than seeing the number of “views” in one day (which really is not a true measure of your traffic, the stats are on each photo.
I have the pro and I will keep it the cost doesnt bother me ~ the free you do not have the stats and just nervous about deleting it and they change their mind and make more changes so I will keep it
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Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts on this you guys. I am still undecided but leaning towards holding on to it. I still have time to decide so I’ll keep thinking it over. Thanks for all your input. <3
I got rid of mine.. at the time, I did not have the extra 25$ to spare but, with adblock, I do not get any ads at all…
And you can see how many times your photo has been viewed by just looking at your photo, and you see get the favs, and all that.
Honestly, I am not sure but, I think that the free account is better in some ways.
I have over 8000 photos.. I have been a flickr member since 2007… so, I keep just about every memory and I am only using, 0.012 of my space… so, I can’t see myself going over that..
Plus, I don’t think that the pro is better then that….
AND, I think there are ways to get your statics from, big huge labs, or some websites like that.
I didn’t renew mine like a year or two ago and I haven’t noticed a difference at all.
I still have it, and have renewed for another year already. (I also use Flickr for my church.) It’s most of the reasons you have there, but I have played with the idea of canceling the account out at times, mostly because I usually get more response to my pictures when I post them on Koinup than on Flickr. In 5 years of Koinup, with a 3 GB limit, I’ve only used about 9% of that allowance; and, as I say, more people fave and reply to me there for some reason.
Wow! You look amazing!
My subscription to Flickr Pro expired in November. I don’t feel like I’m missing anything with the free account. There are some stats but I don’t used them. Jus sayin
Way I see it, I’m grandfathered in at $25/yr and when breaking it down per month, it comes out to $2.08 a month – way less than a cost of a starbucks coffee 🙂 So unless something drastically changes with how Flickr handles the holding (and safekeeping) of my uploads that becomes detrimental to my use of it, I am renewing as a birthday present to myself.
I have two flickr accounts. My SL one is far smaller than my RL and on my RL one I have had flickr pro for years. My subscription was up this past September and I voted to go for a free account.
A: I just want to make sure you know that even after it being 4 months after cancelling my pro account I still have the option to get that $25 a year pro account again. Which means that if you decide to let your subscription die as I did, you always have the ability to go back if you don’t like it. “your Flickr Pro account has expired. But don’t worry, you can regain Pro status by by subscribing to Flickr Pro.”
B: While yes I see ads, I see like 1 ad every 20 pages I go to. And its small and out of the way. I barely notice them, sometimes I don’t at all.
I hope this helps at least some!
I’ve been on Flickr Pro since 2007 for SL snapshots and its a great way of sharing things with friends quickly.
OMG I have now uploaded 23, 443 SL snapshots. There is more to come in 2014.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/danielvoyager/
My Pro expired a couple of months ago. The only thing I am missing are the statistics. Now I do not have any way to check how many views a particular picture has. That’s not the big deal but it would show me what kind of taste people has. As it’s only the statistic (I can’t remember seeing ads or at least they are not very prominent) I am not going to get my Pro status back…at least not for now.
I have just canceled my pro subscription after being a pro member form more than 5 years.