I was afraid of this — some wrinkle in the fine print of the massive changes to photo-sharing website Flickr made yesterday.
There’s nothing wrong with the esthetic improvements, to my mind.
All the trouble lies under the hood.
As blogger/photographer Thomas Hawk found out, the status of “Pro” accounts wasn’t as static as first thought.
Certain people’s current Pro account will eventually expire and those users will be forced into a new upgrade regime — $49.99 annually to remove ads; $499.99 annually to double space allocation to two terabytes. (That second one is not a typo: Four-hundred ninety-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents.)
Other Pro accounts will be allowed to continue.
It is still unclear to me how this Pro vs. Ad-Free/Doublr is suppose to shake down.
Will someone at Flickr please provide a CLEAR explanation of who is entitled to what? Who still has access to old-style Flickr Pro and who doesn’t?
What entitlements that were previously reserved for Pro users will be available to all users with the new free program?
How do I find out how much space I still have? One terabyte is a lot of data but I like to be organized …
Flickr has a few answers here: http://www.flickr.com/help/limits/#150582914
Still, it feels as if I’m information is being withheld or poorly explained.
I just tried to buy two more years under the current Pro regime … and it appears I’ve succeeded — even though the documentation states I shouldn’t be able to do so.
What changed in the last few hours? Has Flickr changed who’s entitled to a Pro account?
Essentially, I’d like to know how screwed I am when my Pro account expires … if it ever does.
This is turning out to be more confusing that it should be.
p.s. In the minutes after I took that screen capture of Thomas Hawk’s blog, he was also able to extend his Flickr Pro account. He is (not surprisingly) ecstatic.
