I'm leaving - bye bye!

[Overread]

Yes I really am!
I've been thinking about it all year and more so in the last few months and weeks in the build up toward Christmas. I'm just not getting my money's worth any more and there are other places offering better or the same kind of service for free; or for vastly less per year.

I'm sad to leave, I've had some great times, but with FB and the mess around when it was sold to other firms its just not giving me value for money any more. The community is missing, the social interactions are near gone and the photos I put up - well I think I've got a fan-group of about one or two save for the random passing "please follow me" beggars

So over the last week I've stripped out photos (mostly old ones) because of the image limit once the account goes free; I've cancelled the renewal date and I've slowly started uploading my work onto a new site. Which is actually going rather well and the big shake up is forcing me to at last put some details onto each photo, even if its just a place and time reference; plus I'm updating the species details for those insects and birds I take photos of. Things that I should have done long ago and never did because I threw that data into a forum thread and then forgot about wherever the thread was.


So I might upload the odd photo now and then, but beyond that I've moved on. It's goodbye to my flickr
Alex

And hello to Deviant Art
Overread User Profile | DeviantArt



And sorry TPF, but you're all still stuck with me here
*here endeth the attention seeking new gallery upload site stuff

 

[terri]

You just about gave me a heart attack!

While I was reading this, I was torn between asking you to change your mind, and issuing you a demerit for making a flounce post.

I'll go check out your gallery at DeviantArt, instead!

 

[Overread]

You just about gave me a heart attack!

While I was reading this, I was torn between asking you to change your mind, and issuing you a demerit for making a flounce post.

I'll go check out your gallery at DeviantArt, instead!

Phew! I dodged "fake flounce thread" Demerit Points!

 

[Dean_Gretsch]

I have had an account at Deviant Art for a few years now, but probably only logged into it maybe 3 times, ever?

 

[Overread]

I have had an account at Deviant Art for a few years now, but probably only logged into it maybe 3 times, ever?

I was much the same, however flickr costing £50 a year for image hosting only was starting to feel like a real sting, especially since my renewal is in January so my wallet already feels light after Christmas. So I figured I just didn't need to spend that much purely to image host. Right now Deviant Art is costing me £0 and if I want I could pay to subscribe and get a few more features, but the price only costs £30.

 

[Grandpa Ron]

It has been said before, a job that does not make money is just an expensive hobby.

I have been chasing music for years, made a little, probably enough to pay for my instruments; but I never quit my engineering day job.

Good luck.

 

[Overread]

Thanks Ron - heh though I wish my photography made money at all - right now the only money I could make is selling gear

 

[John Fantastic]

Same with me Ron, I have always wanted to teach and since photography has been my hobby for the last 40 years, I wanted to teach photography, but as you said its just an expensive hobby. When I retire probably in 5 years I want to teach photography for free. But I will start practicing now

It has been said before, a job that does not make money is just an expensive hobby.

I have been chasing music for years, made a little, probably enough to pay for my instruments; but I never quit my engineering day job.

Good luck.

 

[SquarePeg]

Sorry to see you go from Flickr. Did you use the groups to share your photos? I think that is where the interaction comes in. I enjoy the site not just for hosting but for the group challenges and I consider it a back up storage to my back up storage. I only have about 200 followers and I follow about 200. I love the sudden uptick in attention and views when one of my photos gets “explored” - it’s exciting.

Like any community, you get back what you put in. I go months being active on there and see comments and faves go up then months of not posting anything and they drop off. I do llove to ook at other peoples stuff and I much prefer it to Instagram. Which gets repetitive for me because I follow so many local people and we’re all taking photos of the same stuff!

 

[Overread]

Sadly many of the flickr groups I've seen were dead, or at least whilst people shared photos now and then, the actual conversations were rather gone. I do agree that social groups are what you put into them, though since the dominance of FB many social groups online have become dwindled as well. Flickr might also suffer because many user created groups mean that over time you end up with a single population spread out over many groups; rather than focused into a few. So that might well be masking what activity there is.

Suffice to say I felt that for £50 a year I wasn't getting enough back to make it worth paying when I wasn't investing enough of my time to build the social networks to get the social network rewards from the system. So since I was mostly using it just for image hosting I've moved on. Still got the flickr and who knows in a few years I might revisit using it more so.

 

[petrochemist]

I've only ever had a free account at Flickr. I actually found it best before the hosting limits were first removed. 200 shots was enough & the groups were very active back then.
Most of the better members left when it was rehashed to allow people to flood it with rubbish.
The eventual return of limits for free accounts has improved things very slightly but the groups are very much a shadow of their former selves. Instead of >20 discussions a day the many groups I've joined now often go a week with nothing.

There are still a few groups that remain very useful references, even if they don't get updated anymore.

 

[pez]

I figure being able to store unlimited full size images is worth the money, so I keep the Flickr account active.

 

[Tropicalmemories]

I was just settling down to read a good 'flounce thread' - and it turned out to be an intelligent discussion about Flickr.

I agree that many of the Groups are now dead, though there's still a few gems, but I've also noticed that general activitiy levels seem to be falling.

I'm still persevering for now, as the unlimited storage is good, but I'm looking for alternatives.

 

[johngpt]

Alex, I'm one of the folks who are 'following' you on Flickr.
It looks like you'd last posted there in August?

 

[Overread]

I was just settling down to read a good 'flounce thread' - and it turned out to be an intelligent discussion about Flickr.

I agree that many of the Groups are now dead, though there's still a few gems, but I've also noticed that general activitiy levels seem to be falling.

I'm still persevering for now, as the unlimited storage is good, but I'm looking for alternatives.

I think it if I had a really huge library there I'd likely have stuck with it unless I was moving off-site to go commercial. But as I don't it was fairly easy to move (even if I'm no where near finished moving stuff over).

Alex, I'm one of the folks who are 'following' you on Flickr.
It looks like you'd last posted there in August?

Yep sounds about right; though there isn't much more new on the Deviant Art at of yet - not felt the photo bug much this year (part due to not being able to attend any events - and now its too cold to convince me to play with the moth trap