There are no delete credentials, and the WORM option is enabled when a provider supports it. I can ~always get back to point-in-time.
1,100 karma · joined April 21, 2007
[ my public key: https://keybase.io/don; my proof: https://keybase.io/don/sigs/HGac8zgqkG4zQFQzJp7QcUZIxWsqghqnP5459hwqrvQ ]
Conceptually, though, I think my separation of "sync vs backup" and separating of discrete providers (both software and supplier) accomplishes this same goal. Conceptually, it's not very different, or possibly just a level up, from "online media vs archive media". At least, it seems that way to me.
Specifically, Arq Backup, for example, lets you simply add/remove providers at will. It's happened multiple times, Amazon Drive changed (or went away? I forget...), Google Drive changed their Enterprise policies, etc... No big deal, I just deleted the provider and added another one. I still had plenty of working provider backups, so I wasn't worried while it took a day or two to fill the next provider. (Good argument for having 2+, I'd argue 3+ providers...)
Using notifications from your sync apps/systems/scripts/whatever is essential, of course, in case something fails... but all the good software has that built-in (including email and other notifications, not just OS, which helps for remote systems).
At this point, it's nearly idiot proof. (Good for idiots like me ;)
To that end, I have automated two separate, but complementary, processes for my personal data:
- Sync to multiple machines, at least one of which is offsite, in near realtime. This provides rapid access to data in the event of a disk/system/building/etc failure. Use whatever software you want (Dropbox, Resilio, rsync scripts, etc), but in the event of failure, this solves 99% of my issues - I have another device that has fast access to my most recent data, current to within seconds. This is especially important when bringing up a new, upgraded system - just sync over the LAN. (Currently this is 4 devices, 2 offsite, but it flexes up/down over time occassionally).
- Backup to multiple cloud providers on a regular cadence (I do hourly encrypted incrementals). This protects me against data loss, corruption, malware attacks, my stupidity deleting something, etc. This solves the remaining 1% of my issues, enabling point-in-time recovery for any bit of data in my past, stretching back many years. I've outsourced the "media" issue to the cloud providers in this case, so they handle whatever is failing, and the cost is getting pretty absurdly cheap for consumers, and will continue to do so. My favorite software is Arq Backup, but there are lots of options. (Currently this is 4 discrete cloud providers, and since this is non-realtime typically, utilizes coldest storage options available).
Between these two complimentary, fully automated approaches, I no longer have to worry about the mess of media failure, RAID failures, system failures, human error, getting a new system online, cloud provider being evil, etc etc.
>100X isn't typical, I'd guess typical in my case is >2X, but it's happened at large scale and saved me months of work in this single instance. (Years of work overall)
Finally, it's based on Intel's paper [2], so they also believe it's extremely fast. :)
[1]: https://reveng.sourceforge.io/crc-catalogue/all.htm
[2]: https://web.archive.org/web/20131224125630/https://www.intel...
The original implementation [3] did the same thing but for CRC-64/XZ [4].
[1]: https://github.com/awesomized/crc64fast-nvme
[2]: https://reveng.sourceforge.io/crc-catalogue/all.htm#crc.cat....
[3]: https://github.com/tikv/crc64fast
[4]: https://reveng.sourceforge.io/crc-catalogue/all.htm#crc.cat....
I feel like USV (Unicode Separated Values) neatly improves CSV while maintaining most of its benefits.
Let's start with the facts:
1. You have a free account and pay $0 for the service.
2. You received a few emails informing you of our choices when we changed the free account policies and limits.
3. Your choices included downloading your content, paying for the service, and/or closing your account.
4. You (and everyone) then got more time to make your choice than we'd originally said, for free.
5. Your account, for some reason, hasn't seen some of these changes, so you got even more time to make some of those choices, again for free.
None of that sounds hostile to me. I'm not sure who would consider that behavior hostile (more choices, more time, at $0 cost). Despite the depth of the conversation, I'm still struggling to understand (but, surprisingly, still open to the idea of) how we can be accused of "actual hostility".
Now, let's take your false statements:
- "not doing anything": I can assure you we've done many things, to many accounts. Using an online search engine will reveal plenty of examples. Why has your account not seen some of them? I don't know, but speculating that we haven't done "anything" is simply not true. Even your account has seen many changes, perhaps just not the one you highlight (removing your excess private photos). Try uploading more than 1000 public photos, as just one example of doing something.
- "intended to extort people": Simply not true. The choices were clear and the timeline was, and in your case, remains extremely generous. I happen to know the intent (not deleting any photos for as long as we possibly can) and you do not. Further, every action we've taken supports this intent. We didn't, and don't, hold any photos hostage for payment or anything else. There was no extortion, and there was certainly no intent to extort.
- "hasn't seen any improvement for a very long time": While it's possible you haven't seen any of YOUR preferred improvements, the list of improvements since we took over is long and consistent. We're averaging ~10 material improvements in the form of new features, upgraded features, and significant bug fixes, each month, for the last ~5 years. (Thousands of minor bug fixes, too) They're all well-documented on our blog[1] and in our help forum[2]. Our members agree, based on all of the feedback and data we see.
I typically love conversations like these, with "delightfully discontent" customers, because that's where the real value for learning and growth usually lies, not the thrilled customers I tend to meet day in & day out. I want to learn something here, so I and we can improve. It hasn't happened yet.
We clearly fucked up - you're upset, and you're bothering to engage. I just can't figure it out. Probably my fault. But I'll keep trying. :)
[1] - https://blog.flickr.net/
I'm sad that you keep dodging what I view as the more important questions after you accused us of "actual hostility", though. I'd really love to understand how we missed the mark for you, and how we've been hostile, in case that applies to non-outliers and it's something we can improve on.
Was offering years of downloads on a _free_ service hostile? In what way? Was delaying deletion to give more people more time to download hostile? Why? Do you really believe hundreds of millions of consumers all had backups? What other similar Internet services are better examples of handling a situation like this?
Or are you just trolling and I've been feeding a troll (if so, congrats, I feel like my troll detection is relatively high)?
I'd argue that we have the same perspective on things - Flickr is a way to share, not archive. (Archival may be a wonderful side benefit, but community and connection are what makes Flickr magical, archive is a bonus) Yahoo had a different perspective. We're attempting to reverse it.
And we're succeeding. Across every metric you can imagine, Flickr is the healthiest it's ever been. More active users, more engagement, more connections, more revenue, more of everything - except people treating it like a "photo dump".
Most importantly, our members are ecstatic about it, it's now profitable and cash flow positive, so not in imminent danger (and we're trying to build it, sustainably, for 100+ years[1]). IMHO, it's not nearly enough, yet, but the trajectory is awesome. It's working. And it's working without invading people's privacy, unlike nearly every other social media platform.
We haven't "not done anything". Your account, for reasons I don't know, though someone here at Flickr likely does, hasn't seen anything. There's a big difference. Other accounts have. Every account will, eventually, including yours. Sorry you got an extra runway. ;) We're trying to be VERY careful about deleting photos.
I'm glad you had (and have?) backups. We know definitely, though, that MOST of our members did not. You were an outlier, but our outreach to people without backups was very appreciated. They had a very clear choice, we didn't hold their photos hostage, and that mattered to them.
It was definitely not intended to extort anyone - the options were very clear: download your photos and/or pay for the storage. (I think "and" is the right choice, but I'm biased... I also don't keep my photo archive _only_ on SmugMug and/or Flickr). The vast majority downloaded, rather than paid, and we view that as a win.
We gave people years to learn, choose, and act. I'd say that's pretty generous, and more generous than nearly any other troubled Internet service I've ever heard of. Are you aware of one that's been more generous? If you DIDN'T have backups, would you still have found our emails hostile?
I would appreciate answers to my prior questions, which you didn't address. Were we more hostile than simply turning everything off? It was a binary option. We chose to give people years of choice instead of deleting their photography.
I think "actual hostility" would have been simply shutting Flickr off, something Yahoo was ready to do. (Post acquisition, they later publicly admitted they regretted not doing just that[1]). I'm surprised you view getting notices that you have the opportunity to download your content (or pay for it, your choice) to be hostile. Is it less hostile to simply delete the data with no warning, like hundreds of other services have done?
We've tried hard to thread the needle between fixing Flickr's business model (it was losing tens of millions of dollars a year when we bought them, primarily because giving away 1TB/account for free is not sustainable) and giving people plenty of time to download their photos prior to deletion.
Tough problem, tough situation, but I'm largely proud of how we've handled it - there's been plenty of runway and notice for people to get their photos back if they prefer not to pay (either scenario - paying or downloading - is fine in our minds, but losing photos is not). We're not holding them hostage or anything, we want everyone to have them, one way or the other.
Email open & click rates being what they are (low), we carefully tracked them, plus download and/or subscription rates, to determine how frequently to contact people so we could have a high confidence that most people knew they had a choice and had the chance to make it.
Your photos over the free limits will be deleted, eventually. I don't know when, for your specific account, but it's certainly not just to "silence empty threats". It's not a threat, it's a statement, and it was intended as a courtesy.
I'm glad you have a choice AND you _know_ you have a choice.
[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/verizon-to-lay-off-7-of-media-g...
- The choice to finish moving Flickr or not was literally the decision to keep Flickr on the planet or not. There was no wiggle room in terms of timeline or resources to get the job done. So we had to make some hard decisions, because I, for one, didn't want to see Flickr disappear entirely. For good. This was more likely than most people understand. (See: https://www.vox.com/2019/1/23/18194865/verizon-layoffs-aol-y... )
- Camera Roll wasn't used by most users. When we were faced with the question of "ok, we're going to have to temporarily shut off a major feature to meet this deadline", Camera Roll was the obvious one due to its relatively low usage. I'm sorry you rely on it so much, but it's very clear that's not common relative to other major features.
- Camera Roll being offline hasn't affected usage materially. There appears to be near-zero evidence that many people "basically stopped using" Flickr due to this feature being offline.
- Based on your comment, I checked with long-time Flickr employees who are still employed here, and none can recall Camera Roll being central or core to the Flickr experience, nor it being the landing page. Our usage data, both before and after shut-off, supports this perspective.
- One reason for a smaller # of updates about Camera Roll is simply that it's not done being rebuilt yet. We prioritize time spent building things rather than time spent updating people with "Still no update". I think most customers would rather have us ship it sooner rather than talk about it more and ship it later. The last updates are still true. It's not done, but we're working hard and it is coming soon, which we've said recently, more than once.
If you truly love Flickr, as I do, I hope this perspective is helpful. We (the royal "everyone on Earth" version of "we") nearly lost Flickr forever. SmugMug saved it, but we had to make some hard choices. So we did, and I'd still make them again. Flickr is in good hands, we're excited about the future, and we're excited to get back to building again.
I hope you stick with us.
However, "total radio silence" is not fair. We're very active, and very vocal, about our status updates and progress we're making on the Flickr Help Forum, on our blog, on Twitter, etc. In particular, Flickr now has a CEO (me) who frequently engages with the community and customers to keep them informed, something Flickr hasn't enjoyed since ~2005.
We even have a status page, with frequent realtime updates, which I believe is a first for Flickr: https://status.flickr.net
There is a single feature, Camera Roll, which is still offline undergoing maintenance. No-one is happy it's offline, but it is what it is. It relied on technology internal to Yahoo, which we had to leave behind when we recently exited their datacenters. Given the hard deadline and the vast size, scale, and scope of the Flickr service, we managed to move everything (while keeping it online) except this. It will be returning shortly, but it's not quite ready yet.
I hope you'll stick it out with us, because we're nearly done migrating one of the largest web services on the planet, which means we get to focus on building again instead of just copying. The future is bright.
Disclaimer: I'm the co-founder, CEO & Chief Geek at SmugMug, the company that acquired Flickr from Yahoo last year.
2. The coverage across modern OSes, browsers, and devices is incredibly high, and increasing daily, or we wouldn't be finally pulling the trigger. (I've wanted to do this for 16 years!)
3. Hmm, hadn't thought about this. What did you have in mind?
And you're welcome on Yahoo login. Hard at work, but should be soon. Definitely want to let people access Flickr in whatever way they prefer.