I was a premium Flickr user for years, and then they broke sharing in a big way. I could no longer send "private" links to people I knew of my photo albums and expect them to be able to view the photos without signing up for an account.
I now share simple photo albums with Microsoft Sway.
In fact, the link is the very first thing you get when you click the "Share" button, no need to click anything else. That feature is actually one of the primary reasons I'm still a Pro user after all those years, so I'm glad they seem to still care about it.
EDIT: I think I do vaguely remember that it was broken (or at least undiscoverable) for a while, so I'm not challenging you, I just wanted to inform you that it's back better than ever.