Jeremy Zawodny finds Flickr to be “one of the best examples of next generation web services.” I left a comment there, of which the main point is… how does Flickr intend to earn money to keep the service live and evolving? I set up an account a few weeks ago when I saw that the FeedBurner team was splicing away with Flickr, and the service is nifty.
But before I commit time and energy and data to another cool web service, I want to know whether it will be around in 6-12 months or more. No one knows the future, but how does Flickr intend to stick around? To their credit, I see that they are answering this question to the best of their current knowledge. “Yes, there will always be a free version of Flickr! There will also be “pro” accounts, with more storage and features.” Is that enough? I don’t know. And maybe they make it so easy to add photos that I hardly care about the time spent, etc. This isn’t aimed solely at Flickr… it’s just a larger, “I’ve been burned before by the bubble” sentiment. I want to be an optimist, but “free” worries me.