Bye-Bye Flickr Logins
31 January 2007, mid-morning
Flickr is going to start making people log in with Yahoo IDs starting on March 15th. I have been doing so since I bought a flickr pro account, a little over a year ago. It seemed like as good a time as any to make the switch. People can get pretty passionate about stuff like this. It’s interesting to see the attachment people form for a login name and password. I imagine the fact they have to trade in their Flickr login for a Yahoo one doesn’t make the transition any better. A lot of people have issues with Yahoo. I would argue sentimentality is the only legitimate reason to hold a grudge here; since the Yahoo acquisition, the service at Flickr has only gotten better. You get more for your money now than you did before. And, as far as I can tell, the community around Flickr remains the same. You just need to make it past the initial hurdle of making a stupid Yahoo ID then its smooth sailing. I don’t think there will be any lasting backlash from this whole thing. People have known that they would need to switch to Yahoo logins for well over a year now. That won’t stop people from freaking out mind you.
Update: Anil Dash is OK with all these changes, and wonders why people are freaking out. (Maybe he browses a different Internet than I do.) Two Flickr competitors are out of the gates trying to steal users: The Dark Side of the Flickr Acquisition, Flickr News Today Sucks. I can’t imagine there are any users who are so distraught at having to get a Yahoo ID they’re going to leave Flickr behind. There is even a pretty crap MetaFilter thread on this non-event.
Yahoo’s password/username recovery system is the worst thing ever. I keep having to create new accounts when I forget information because their challenge questions are idiotic. How the heck am I supposed to remember the fake postal code I used when I registered a few months ago and used the account once to access some obscure thing that requires a pass.
by Iluvitar on January 31 2007, 11:50 am #
I entirely agree with Patrick.
by rishi on January 31 2007, 2:30 pm #
I was waiting for your comment; I thought it’d be angrier. At least now they added the ability to give people guest passes, so they can view private photos without an account. I think this change would have been more annoying without the passes.
by ramanan on January 31 2007, 2:46 pm #