After many years, I’m leaving Flickr. It was fantastic, and went down from there.
Flickr certainly changed my life, as this is where I connected with my first US friends, which led me to my first trip to California three years later, and the rest is history. The internet was still mostly about connecting with interesting strangers, and we did just that. We’re still friends and caring about each other in this new 2020s life.
Flickr the service, was ahead of its time. I really wish Automattic had acquired this incredible source of inspiration, and made it a serious competitor to the rising Instagram at the start of the 2010s.
There’s something extremely freeing about packing my stuff and not having to worry about numbers (views, favs, tags) and anxiety-inducing feeds. Also, no more payments (it was $25 for 2 years, it’s now $70 for a year).
Thank you, creators of Flickr.