Flickr: here we go again

So in the future, when the revenue coming from paying members is small enough to ignore, and the advertising numbers come in below expectations (as they often do), my fear is that Yahoo will come to an almost inevitable business decision: To kill Flickr.

via The new Flickr: Goodbye customers, hello ads | TechHive.

I’ve been a Flickr user for… a long time (actually, I went to try and find out and it doesn’t tell you anymore) and a paying Flickr Pro member on and off for about 4 years. I joined in when it was riding high on the web 2.0 wave and stayed during the slog that were the years of Yahoo acquisition.

Now… this. They want fifty bucks just for not displaying ads. No other benefit but that. Sure, I like the new website design, and the new mobile app… but the underlying functionality of the site will be much downgraded now, and the mobile app still will not post to Twitter.

Hell, I’ve received mails from Flickr telling me to convert to a free account from my paid Pro account. They want to let go of a sure 25 dollars so they can put ads on my pages; ads that most likely will not pull 25 dollars — much less 50 dollars — in a year of service.

Like Mr. Powazek says, that gamble better pay off, although I’ll hedge my bet and say that in two years time, it won’t have and Flickr will be unceremoniously killed by the suits at Yahoo.

Once again, Flickr is being treated like a fucking database.