The Last Guy on Flickr

Did some­thing last week that I know most of you will think is crazy: I bought two more years on Flickr. Trust me, I think it’s pret­ty crazy, too. 

I used Insta­gram for a while, but I real­ized those pics are trapped in an ecosys­tem that’s just as com­pli­cat­ed as Flickr, but with­out sets and at much low­er resolution. 

Pri­va­cy is impor­tant, too. Flickr offers me options. I don’t need to broad­cast every­thing. If I want to share, I’ll twit­pic and be done with it. Fil­ters are nice, but a bit gim­micky and square pho­tos have meant that more than one great image of my son crops his head off when I try to print. Bum­mer, that.

To top it off, I have a ton of pho­tos host­ed on Flickr, going back six years. Do I wish I’d snagged my real name instead of my ’00s alias? Yes, but they’re mem­o­ries, no mat­ter how sil­ly the permalink.

Am I afraid of what might hap­pen in the near future at Flickr? Of course. The Deli­cious spin­off went about as bad­ly as pos­si­ble. But I have to believe that Flickr can be adapt­ed to a more social mobile expe­ri­ence that still deliv­ers what peo­ple loved about the ser­vice when they first bought a pro account. At least I hope so.

So ‘fess up: who still uses and enjoys Flickr? Let’s connect!