No more free ride on Flickr

[PFMcFarland]

It had to happen sooner or later. The good folks at SmugMug decided to slip one in over the weekend, so now you have to turn off your Add Blocker to be able to have full functionality of the Flickr site. If your Activity Feed isn't showing more than a couple of photos (or none at all), and all your other pages stop without scrolling beyond the first page, then your Add Blocker is interfering with the new regime. This even affects those with PRO accounts (though thankfully the "No Advertising" part of having a PRO account is still in force). But the Free accounts no longer can get away with not seeing the adverts. Probably a push by SmugMug to get more folks to sign up as PRO since it was done in a carpet bombing fashion.

PF

[Philip]

This will likely work against them. The more they have ads, the more free users will turn away. The fewer free users, the smaller the "community" and the less satisfying the experience for Pro users. And that will turn away the Pro users, reducing their income. The smaller the community, too, the lower the ad revenue, further decreasing their corporate income.

Sigh. Flickr has been a central thing for me for many years, but it may soon be time to move along from there.

Of course, I've been annoyed in the past with Flickr's changes. . . .

[Dustin McAmera]

I have a Pro account, and use AdBlock Plus and NoScript (though I've allowed most of the script). I haven't noticed a change in behaviour yet.

[PFMcFarland]

I have a Pro account, and use AdBlock Plus and NoScript (though I've allowed most of the script). I haven't noticed a change in behaviour yet.

I believe they roll these changes out a batch at a time so that if problems do crop up, they can make corrections before upsetting everyone.

PF

[Philip]

They are Bad Pandaing today, 19 July.

[PFMcFarland]

They are Bad Pandaing today, 19 July.

Yeah, that's what happened to me the day before they made the No Ad Blocker change. Then the Activity Feed wouldn't load pictures, Photostreams ended before the bottom of the first page, and some things just didn't work at all. Then when I checked the Help Forum, I saw an entry concerning the same issues I was having, and that's how I learned about needing to turn off the Ad Blocker.

They could have been nice and politely asked me to turn it off, instead of keeping the fix a big secret.

PF