[Clay Shirky] Notes from ITP: Flickr-as-web-services edition

"Flickr seems to have avoided the Fuck Fotolog-style controversies, with a sizable number of ITP power-users going with the Pro service. I’m not sure how they avoided the typical user flames, but some of the factors seem to be Flickr being more on the personal side of the personal-to-public spectrum, whereas moblogs are often touted as publishing tools, and people seem to have an easier time paying for personal service than membership in a community; people with camera phones are already used to paying for getting the pictures off the phone; and Flickr has less of a conversational dynamic than Fotolog, and so less outlet for that kind of self-amplifying outrage.

It also has some business downsides as well —- the Pro pricing model assumes moderate use over steady periods, but both 24in48 and Bickr can drive incredibly spiky usage in short periods, not well accounted for in Pro pricing. However, making all the participants in things that use Flickr as a web service have a Flickr account will dampen adoption of the subscribing services.

Worse, there is a HotorNot-like incentive to leave all the photo-hosting costs with Flickr, rather than caching and re-serving locally. This tension between types of fees and who "owns" the user is an unanswered question in web service business models generally [...]"