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drcongotoday at 12:24 PM1 replyview on HN

Hello. I just logged in for the first time in a while and it asked me to verify my age, despite the fact that my Flickr account is 22 years old. I've been paying for Flickr Pro as long as that has been possible, if I remember correctly, my Flickr user number was ~620. Surely, with an account that's 22 years old you don't need to hand my personal information to Peter Thiel?

To some degree I only still pay for it out of nostalgia for what it was. I stopped using it when it started trying to upload my entire camera roll every time I opened the mobile app - Flickr was never about storing all your photos on someone else's server, it was about curation and community. It somewhat lost that as phone photography got more popular, and instead of empowering users to do that directly on their phone, it presented itself as a mere backup utility. The app seems to be entirely non-functional now, no content loads at all for me. Flickr's failure to move with the rise mobile photography feels like its biggest misstep - age verification for an account that is 22 years old though might actually convince me to stop paying. I'm not using it, the mobile app is broken, and now it wants to hand my PII to a third party.


Replies

onethumbtoday at 1:06 PM

We have a lot of mobile usage and the app works fine, so I'd love to know more about what you're experiencing with it. Can you contact our Support Heroes so we can assist? https://www.flickrhelp.com/

You make a fair point about the age verification thing. I'll look into it. It's probably based on a legal requirement that we have to deal with, even if the solution is silly. Sorry about that.