Based on this logic, you must also leave your front door open and your car keys on your dashboard, since burgelers are to be expected anyway.

Flickr is a only an amateurs photo club used by those egos who can't function without their daily dose of meaningless favs or moronic comments.
I fave yours so you'll fave mine, pfff!

Those egos live in a fantasy world disconnected from what really matters: real buyers, people voting popular photos with their wallet.
Being on the front page of the most popular SS photos is much more valuable than any "explore" badge, you seem to be very proud of.

Quote from: Sammy the Cat on April 28, 2018, 22:19

I love it when in modern parlance "hate" is used to substitute for the word "criticism"

Sorry to say Sam but you won't be a faithful Flickrer you'll have to be a Smug Mugger

Yeah, in modern use, "hate" and "critique" can be synonyms: so what?  I feel like this quote was meant to disrespect my use of language, and notice how the first two things you mention were insignificant to the larger conversation here?  By discrediting my language skills and making these silly "corrections," I feel like anything you go on to say carries that lack of respect for my point of view (and I make 100% of my living in photo/video, so by no means am I not a "professional" as you seem to later suggest).  So I just want to point out how I took your response to my comment.  I felt invalidated and discredited without a thought for my well-explained opinion.

Sorry Sam it was 3am in the morning and it was not meant to disrespect your use of language.

I was commenting how the word "hate" has largely replaced the word "criticism" or "critique"

As to suggesting you are not a "professional" you read to much in to it.

I was commenting how I left flickr "closed the account left all the dumb "Great capture" and "Woo Yay" wanna be pro photog BS never looked back"

It does not imply that I was commenting about anyone (or even you) in particular just the flickr experience as a whole.

Quote from: ShadySue on April 29, 2018, 10:43

That's what really matters to you, which is fine for you and others with the same mindset.
That's not what really matters to everyone else, who may have a living elsewhere and no possible interest in all the hassle which arises from selling stock.

That is true.

Also there are many pro photographers who share samwagner10's point of view, offering their work or part of it for free without likes and comments, not even credit is required.

The number of these free site has grown these last years, I think the latest is https://unsplash.com

Here, that's the real race to the bottom.
These are not pros, but attention seekers.
If you agree with this behaviour, you have no right to complain about decreasing royalties and contributor mistreatment by various agencies. 2 cents a photo from IS is infinitely better than zero from Flickr or Unsplash. You can't have it both ways.

I understand pros offering free stuff when they branched into tutoring aiming to take advantage of this ever growing number of wannabes dreaming about being "artists". These are smart business men and women.

When it comes to Flickroos & Co, I don't even see this as charity. It is clearly more about egos, bragging and fishing for compliments than anything else.

Again, the best compliment you can get is to see your photo bought 1,000 times, being used in the real economy, by real customers who liked it enough to pay real money for it.

These are not pros, but attention seekers.

It's not for you to decide whether or not I'm a professional photo/videographer.  My clientele and the fact that I make all of my income doing a combination of stock and other photo/video work determines whether or not I'm a professional. 

Being on the front page of the most popular SS photos is much more valuable than any "explore" badge, you seem to be very proud of.

Of course you're not wrong!  I'd much rather make money than earn likes.  However, exposure is exposure... And I hope that you can acknowledge there are points to be made on that side of the argument (see my previous posts in this thread, I layout a variety of reasons why Flickr proves useful to my work), just as I understand the desire to always be paid in full for my work.  Stolen images online are the least of my being-stiffed-for-work problems, I've run into payment issues in real life with in-the-flesh clients!  And I can only imagine the viewpoint of those who've been in the industry longer than I (~7 years), where they may know full well how much work value has dramatically decreased.  I just feel like like you're being very aggressive and insulting to those with different opinions... And I also think that whether you like it or not, the industry is obviously very different today than 10, 20 or more years ago.  We all just have to roll with that and adapt, complaining doesn't do much good.

Sorry Sam[...]

'preciate it.  I just so often feel a lot of hostility online, I try to be careful and know I'm not perfect, but at the same time, I'll always defend myself.  Especially in a setting where we're kinda all in this together and sort of here to benefit each other.

I just went through and deleted all my flicker photos.
Too lazy to read all the new "terms" that smugmug will acquire.

I read this topic with mild alarm. I am a long time iStock guy but use Flickr exclusively for non-stock personal use. I did not see any notice but will  investigate. A few years ago I decided to use Flickr to store albums of personal photos  for my own and sharing with family and friends. I find it a great way to organize and share, so much so that I have pretty much gotten out of the habit of putting copies on an external drive like I used to. I has become my repository for all my family and vacation photos, many thousands now.
Maybe I'm being foolish but I figured if Flickr goes down and those photos disappear, the whole world must be ending and it won't matter anyway. Flickr is my "safe" bookcase full of my photos albums I hope will long outlast me.
I do not use Flickr for any storage or sharing of stock photos, but it seems it would be hard for someone to steal them unless you allow them to with the permissions. As I understand it, no-one can even see them unless you choose.
Is this changing with Smug Mug, I guess I better find out.

They sent out several emails to everyone, check your spam folder.
This is the new site: https://www.smugmug.com/together/?utm_campaign=flickr-launch&utm_source=Flickr&utm_medium=product&utm_content=home-page

Its good that they ending free accounts, nothing is free maybe that's why the community went dead cos nobody values anything if its free.

Now their are changing Flickr free accounts. Check their blog post here

Just went to look, hey I have an account and I didn't remember. Joined in 2009 and have seven photos. I think I need to remove six of those...

Quote from: Shadow Creation on November 06, 2018, 05:45

Now their are changing Flickr free accounts. Check their blog post here

I find 1000 images/free account is a very decent and generous change.
Many years ago, when I first subscribed to Flickr, free account was 200 images.

Smugmug was never a free platform and they sure didn't buy Flickr to do charity. Business is business and storage costs money.

Besides, professional stock photographers live in their own bauble, they don't realize that a huge % of people (I guess about 80%) who browse the web daily have no idea that stock photography exists.

Those people are glad to use a free account on Flickr or any other free platform to share their family photos.

True, but I have no interest in the community, votes or likes part. 

For someone who wants to store or share that works. Also there's Google https://photos.google.com/?pageId=none and Postimage https://postimg.cc/files and Nikon https://www.nikonimagespace.com/ or Canon https://www.irista.com/ (don't have to have a Nikon or Canon camera) Adobe? And finally DropBox. I probably didn't list all of them.

Smugmug seems reasonable for the storage and I'll guess, they aren't doing this for free just to be nice. Expect notifications and photo print deals to be offered. Not bad?

Flickr, nope, no interest.