i'm perfectly capable of running my own backup solution
    and wouldn't trust an online 3rd party online with hi-res
    versions of my pics anyway, so again useless.

I'd actually be happy to, if Flickr was willing to back up RAW files. But, since they're not, their 1TB is worthless to me.

    dumbing down for the sake of smartphone users,
    but without any social side to it

Yep, totally agree.