And these changes don't do anything for me personally.
1) Uploadr - as a semi-pro user, i.e. still using real cameras and lightroom (with plugin) to sync to flickr this means nothing.
2) 1TB of online storage, again as a semi-pro user, and i assume like a lot of other semi-pro users, i'm perfectly capable of running my own backup solution and wouldn't trust an online 3rd party online with hi-res versions of my pics anyway, so again useless.
3) Albums, search - again perfectly happy with the way these were before, i have a workflow that includes creating an album to sync to flickr which isn't cumbersome and i can guarantee the pics i want will be in it.
Flickr used to have a great community of people in it's groups (often pros), with great discussions with threads that were reasonably easy to navigate and search (much better than facebook has ever been) but that whole social side has died.
All these changes, just smack of dumbing down for the sake of smartphone users, but without any social side to it, i can't see why anyone, who already uses facebook or instagram (bizarrely considering the terms and conditions), would switch?
i'm perfectly capable of running my own backup solution
and wouldn't trust an online 3rd party online with hi-res
versions of my pics anyway, so again useless.
I'd actually be happy to, if Flickr was willing to back up RAW files. But, since they're not, their 1TB is worthless to me.
dumbing down for the sake of smartphone users,
but without any social side to it
That's a very good point about RAWs, in my haste to dismiss it out of hand, i hadn't realised it doesn't backup RAW. But then just another sign of where it's target demographic is.
While Flickr may be adding new features for the mass market, I don't really see how any of it threatens to decrease the site's utility to serious enthusiasts. I'll just continue to upload through Lightroom, using the site to browse photo streams of photographers I follow and discovering new ones through their likes.
If Flickr were to stage some sort of Twitter-like attempt to rein back in its ecosystem, shutting out pro software that interacts with it, that would be something else entirely, but this is just adding first-party doodads for people who want to use them.
I haven't seen the new version yet, but that would be really bad decision - leaving all those albums with guest pass links unavailable. It's not like people would search for all those old messages and then resend the links again.
