Hacker News Reader

Arguably the people who value free over everything else aren't good customers and aren't a good foundation to build an actual sustainable business on.

View on HN

Arguably, free tier users are potential customers, not customers.

I'd say if you offer a service and someone takes you up on the offer, they are your customer.

They are not customers if they don't pay.

While they may not be a good foundation to build upon, they are good marketers. Just a roundabout way of saying adoption begets adoption and barriers are the opposite (though sometimes the trade-off is worth it as may be the case here).

I would wager Flickr stopped growing significantly a while ago, and therefore doesn't benefit from any marketing that people with free accounts might do for them.

And as the saying goes in creative industries: you can't eat "exposure." The only way to make money is the charge money, and it's generally worth it even if it means pissing off people who expect stuff for free.

Heck I bet this change will drive up awareness of Flickr. I can't even remember what I have there, but now I'm going to look up my creds and log in to find out.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com