loverdag

Waves. This is my very first post on the forum, on the beginning apology for my english, don't bite me pls! - end of off topic - Abou the new Flickr owner, please do not panic (yet)! 1/ prices and services - SmugMug (I'm not SmugMug customer myself, this is summary what I understood from info on Flickr Help forum about the upcoming changes). The current SmugMug prices posted above are NOT for same services as Flickr offers and I dare to say they aren't even for same type of customer. Flickr is social site, has all the shiny tools for connecting with others (faves, comments, groups, galleries ...), other "non-photography" formats are officialy allowed (screenshots, illustrations etc) = the site is supposed to be for everyone who like to connect with others with same proffesion or hobby. Commercial use is limited - originally was restricted to everyone, relatively recently was allowed for PRO accounts only. SmugMug is opposite in this regard - is supposed to be used mainly for business, for professionals who need their own website to show their work to potentional customers and/or want to sell their photos. (Of course you can use it just to show your photos to grandma, but the prices - I believe - were set for business use). SmugMug has tools for creating good looking proffesional web-presentations (missing on Flickr) and lacks the social tools provided by Flickr. Different purposes, different customers, different prices. It gives us no reason to think we will be forced to pay so much for Flickr services as well. 2/ prices and services and TOS - Yahoo Yahoo/Oath didn't care at all, Flickr was not in the good hands - bugs, lack of customers support and last but not least NO guarantee of the current prices/settings as well. I remember the old free accounts - they existed, but were so limited that to use them for years was not possible - for the instance they had limit how many pictures in photostream are shown, I'm not sure about the particular number, but I think it was about 200 (last uploaded) only. And there were other limits as well, as number of groups and more. To stay under Yahoo/Oath would not give any guarantee they wouldn't change rules for free accounts again, or even they would keep the free accounts in general. Some of Flickr accounts were "lucky" to be forced to accept new Oath TOS and they very complained about its "aggressiveness". Now they will in use only until May 25 (and most of us won't be forced to accept them at all). As I read on the forum, SmugMug TOS are much nicer and don't try to take rights for customer's pictures more then they have to to be able to provide their services. 3/ nudity on SmugMug I beleive Flickr rules will stay as they are, "no nudity allowed" is old SmugMug rule and Flickr staff already said on the Flickr Help forum, they added first new version of TOS about that, so it seems to be in the process to be adjusted for Flickr users and needs.