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Comment by zalew | Hacker News Reader

I fail to see how Flickr is a 'sinking ship'.

btw to all the photo app creators out there: no API - no go.

Yeah, I have to agree on both points. I feel like I missed a memo about Flickr going down. AFAIK Flickr isn't even leaking, never-mind sinking... Am I wrong? Have I missed something?

And API is one of the things that makes Flickr great, Snapjoy may have a sweet web interface but that's not enough. I'm guessing from the fact that they have a GitHub account that they'll release an API when the code has settled down a bit more internally, so that's probably just a short-term issue.

The pricing though... the pricing isn't even remotely comparable. You gotta give me a damn good reason to spend that much more money on a competing tool that basically just hosts my images and makes them easily viewable.

Having been around conversations with some of the old Flickr people, I have to disagree. It's definitely sinking, and has been slowly gutted over the past few years. This is only the most recent piece of news: http://nolancaudill.com/2012/01/30/the-front-line/

All of the core Flickr people have left, and some (like Aaron Straup Cope) are starting to build their own: http://straup.github.com/parallel-flickr/ http://www.aaronland.info/weblog/2011/10/14/pixelspace/#para...

> It's definitely sinking

opinion != fact

existing alternatives != original sinking

I'm not a fan of Yahoo either, but all I hear is that is sinking because somebody got fired, or it's sinking because someone on a blog wrote that he doesn't like it no more.

So what there's pararell or whatever other apps to backup or sync? I've started making sth similar for django http://zalew.net/2012/01/11/django-flickr/ and what that has to do with Flickr failing?

BTW remember 'dying blog platforms' by Posterous?

It's like a bank run; rumor spreads that Flickr is dying, so everyone pulls their photos and stops paying for pro accounts because they think Flickr is dying, causing Flickr to die.

Flickr is a huge site and they're not going to suddenly stop working one day. If they do decide to shut down, they're going to give users plenty of notice and probably offer easy ways to export photos and metadata. Until that happens, my photos are staying on Flickr and I'll continue to view my friends' photos on Flickr.

Okay so they have cut a few jobs and Yahoo! haven't done much to the site in 1-2 years. But why does that mean its sinking? The site still works great, still has loads of features, making it great to use. The pricing is brilliant for what you can get out of them (I only have around 3k on there). Plus their API is brilliant.

Until they start doing stuff that will effect how I use the service I wont be switching, I'd love to see some facts about users 'abandoning ship'.

Edit: Just tried signing up to SnapJoy and added my Flickr account, thats still pending and I cant seem to get any photos uploaded and showing on my homepage.

Lack of any product and engineering development on it is a clear warning sign that Yahoo is liable to cut the site. If it made them money, they'd put more work into it. If it's only making middling amounts of money, and they're not putting work into it, then they likely don't see growth potential and see it more as a burden than anything.

I've been worried about Flickr disappearing for a while, but I don't think it's anywhere close yet. Also I'm not really interested in yet another third-party service from someone even less trusted than Flickr.

I'm happy to see projects like parallel-flickr pop up. I even started my own version: https://github.com/aaronpk/Flickr-Archiver

There are few things I trust more than Flickr right now, but I want to be ready in case they sink in the near future.

Nolan, here: the guy that wrote the post about the recent layoffs.

As stated in the post, I honestly believe that Flickr-the-site, in the long run, will be fine. Do these layoffs hurt? Of course! But Flickr has had bigger bumps in the past and has pushed through them all. The engineers there are an incredible crew of guys and Markus's post at the first of the year on blog.flickr.net shows that they've got some exciting stuff on the way.

I also have been (in a small way) helping Aaron with parallel-flickr and I think he as much as anyone would say that he's not building a replacement Flickr but more of being a good archivist and leaving nothing important up to chance, even if the odds are 1-in-some-big-number of Something Bad happening.

Obviously, I don't know the whims of major corporations like Yahoo, but Flickr-the-site, which is its content and its devotion to preserve that content, hasn't wavered in how it treats your data.

If I used Flickr for photo storage, I might consider leaving, however, I have hard drives for that. I use Flickr for the community, and until some other site even begins to approach the number of talented photographers that Flickr's userbase has, I have no intention of bailing.

This is what many implementers of photo sharing sites don't get. (I didn't get it myself for a few years.) Flickr is a social network for photography enthusiasts. Just because another site puts photos on a web page doesn't mean it's a competitor. Especially Snapjoy, since automatic organization by date is more for pictures that tell your life story than for pictures that show your portfolio.

Agreed. Snapjoy doesn't even let you exhibit your photos publicly.

Neither does Instagram, really.

Instagram has an API, and several sites use it to allow you to show your photos publicly if you so choose, albeit limited resolution (612x612).

Would you say Yahoo is a sinking ship? Yahoo owns Flickr.

that's kind of the point.

Yes, Yahoo! does appear to be a sinking ship, by all accounts.

Albeit a very large ship that will take a long time to sink.

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