My point was more about the uptime of the service … I use it regularly (I have over 2000 pics online in my account) and I’ve never seen the problems you describe except in very isolated situations. Unlike others on the net, I have experience in system administration, so I know that 100% uptime is simply impossible. Over the 2-ish years I’ve been on Flickr, I’ve had access to my account with no errors well over 99% of the time. Whatever I am paying for the service, thats a good record of uptime by any standards, IMO. Given that I haven’t seen the level of problems you describe, is it possible that its your internet connection, and not Flickr, thats causing you the problems?

I am not trying to cheer lead in any way … I simply think that Flickr has a pretty solid record of availability and uptime, especially given that its a “free” service if you choose not to pay. My experience with Flickr is amazing availability … I don’t deny others might have a different experience, but I wonder why I see such a solid uptime, when others seem not to. I’m simply saying that whenever I’ve wanted or needed Flickr, its been there for me … what more can I ask of a free service?

At the other end of the scale professional photographers would be slumming it if they were on Flickr.

It’s really only the talented amateurs, who make Flickr look special rather than the photo equivalent of Geocities, that are being irritated. They’re the only ones who don’t have a viable alternative and really stand to lose from moving from Flickr. They take their hobby seriously and that’s why it’s the faults rather than actual cost that’s annoying them.

As for Ted’s comments on Apple, it’s complete and utter nonsense to say it’s a cult. I and the rest of the Mac re-education cadre will explain this to him in more detail once we’ve finished putting on our ceremonial Steve Jobs replica polo-necks. 🙂

More to the point, if you signed up for 24/7 food delivery for a whole year for $25, would you really complain ALL that loudly if 3 or 4 times a year they took a little longer to get your food?

Well, if $25 was a months income to me I certainly would. If it was an hours income, probably not. Lots of people who use flickr are well paid citizens of the western world. Not all are though. Even amongst the westerners, what about school children who save up six months pocket money so they can have a service, then the service lets them down for a week? Should they remain quiet?

Equally, because most people are well off, should the poorer members of Flickr suffer a bum service, simply because the rich dont want to complain?

The point I was trying to make is that the relative cost should not be the driving force. Flickr claims to provide a service and when that service fails they should be taken to task over it. It amazes me that people will, in the face of a borked service, clamour about how great it is.

Pretty much every day this week I have had problems with it – uploads fail, groups vanish and reappear, the API fails (so you can do things like add pictures to groups). Not a major problem for me, but then I am never going to go round saying how great Flickr is. Unless people complain about poor service, why should Flickr ever bother to improve?

Flickr is not a “good service” as such – it has lots of flaws and huge room for improvement. However, as it pretty much owns a monopoly (is there any real competition?) people are stuck with it. Even Flickr’s rabid adherents know there is no alternative – they just think this is a good thing.

However, imagine you were in a restaurant and had to order each item of food three of four times…

More to the point, if you signed up for 24/7 food delivery for a whole year for $25, would you really complain ALL that loudly if 3 or 4 times a year they took a little longer to get your food? One of the issues that net companies face that others don’t is that they are expected to be up and available 24/7/365 with 0% downtime. I’ve been on flickr for a couple of years now, and while I have seen some of the “problems” you talk about, overall, flickr has easily been available and efficient for me well over 99% of the time. I am not “cheerleading” but I think that 99 % uptime is a pretty reasonable record of service, even if I do have to refresh a couple of times once in awhile …

Ted – In some respects being patient is fine, there isn’t really much else to do. The thing that confuses me (and you are right, it is a LOT like Apple fans.. 🙂 ) is how when people quite rightly complained that a service they had paid for wasn’t doing what they paid for, there were the hardcore aficionados who churned out volumes of ad hominems to try and defend the Great Flickr.

Null – Yahoo takeover was a real bummer. Flickr has gone down hill (IMHO video is insane) but, sadly, it is still better than the dross competition.

Reminds me of Apple and their cult following. (yes the little icon above shows I’m on a Mac, too…)

Worse things could happen, it’s only Flickr…

I don’t think it matters what you pay and I don’t think it is an issue of perspective. Frankly I’m not terribly bothered by this anyway as I have nothing to upload, etc. Nonetheless, it still bothers me how frequent the problems are becoming on flickr.

But what bothers me more is that there are always ass kissers here who chime in and say “great work” and “thank you, can I have another” and those people degrade the quality of service that we receive because they let flickr off the hook too easily. I’m not really saying there is much else we can do, but to thank them just seems to be backwards to me.

I fully agree. Sadly this response was predictable:

Don’t you have better things to do than complaining?
I was not happy with the problems either but do I cry?
I admit I don’t pay for flickr to work – this might be why I see this differently. But just be a bit more relaxed next time.

I hope the problems will be fixed in my next break from work…

Why should people be relaxed?