I'm surprised he hasn't disclosed it himself, but it's worth noting that the author has tried his own hand at this problem with the site Zooomr.com. Things didn't work out though and the site never took over Flickr.
He has expressed on multiple occasions his dissatisfaction but fail to disclose his conflict of interest as well as the fact that if he really really hates the service so much he can take it elsewhere or try to start his own (oh wait, that didnt work out).
He has never stopped using Flickr, and still thought Flickr was great when he went to Zooomr: http://thomashawk.com/2006/06/why-im-going-to-work-for-zooom...
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2868269
;-)
Putting that aside, he's also done this repeatedly to no avail so it is disappointing to say the least to see people pick up and repeat his deeply flawed message.
You might also want to take a look at the following for some perspective on the man behind the persona.
http://www.jeremynicholl.com/blog/2011/07/18/stockbroker-tho...
http://www.jeremynicholl.com/blog/2011/06/27/%E2%80%9Cjay-ma...
http://www.jeremynicholl.com/blog/2011/07/04/how-stockbroker...