Why We Keep Using Shitty Old Apps Like Flickr
I just transferred my photos from Flickr. Yes, this is 2017 and I was still using Flickr. Why? Since I’ve been using it since 2005, it’s free, and the mobile app … is fine. But now that Flickr seems to be joining the likes of AOL and Earthlink in the Internet’s graveyard, it’s clearly time to leave. Why did it take me so long to leave?
First off, let’s talk about why anyone would want to leave Flickr, even if it might seem obvious to anyone who has tried to use the service in the past couple of years. In addition to the fundamental underdevelopment of Flickr, including the fact that they dropped support for free automatic photo uploads , a massive Yahoo hack was discovered last year that turned out to be worse than originally thought . Then, a few months ago, Verizon acquired Yahoo , which calls into question the future of Flickr. The combination of all these factors was a sufficient signal for me that it was time to leave. But it took months to convince myself of this.
The longer you use the services, the harder it is to leave
Sunk cost error is a term that often comes up in connection with work or financial investments , but it applies here as well. The idea of sunk cost is that the more you invest in something, the harder it becomes to give it up. If you’ve ever woken up one day and realized that you’re using some outdated, useless application that barely works because that’s what you’ve always used, then you know exactly how sunk costs work.
I’ve spent a lot of time on Flickr. I’ve been uploading photos for hours. Plugged in IFTTT recipes that collected photos from Facebook and Instagram , and created shared vacation albums. As time went on, I spent more and more on Flickr, even though I knew the service would never be updated. When I signed up on Flickr a few years ago, there weren’t many options, but even two or three years ago Google Photos and even Apple Photos were ahead of Flickr. But it’s a shame, because I spent so much time learning the more and more outdated Flickr system that it was too difficult to leave it. I’ve hated Flickr for the past couple of years, but I also didn’t have to think too much about how to use it. Sure, it had its own quirks, but I incorporated them into my workflow and I could use it without a second thought.
So I kept using Flickr because I felt the time it would take to find alternatives and transition was not worth it. This is the same mindset that keeps us from quitting stupid projects or even playing a stupid game . As humans, we often choose to stay on course and persist in the hope that things will get better. If we’ve spent a lot of time on something, letting go of it seems like a waste.
Web services make it difficult to use the intended purpose
The difficulty of trying to end a service isn’t just in your head. Web services are notorious for making it difficult to leave. It turns out that Flickr can be one of the worst offenders.
To download all of your photos from Flickr, you have to select each photo, move it to an album, and then download that album. When you do, Flickr splits this album into separate ZIP downloads. In my case, I needed to download 12 archives. Each zip file was about 1 GB in size, and each one did not download three or four times. One of these archives refused to download at all. This meant that I would sit and wait for the archive to download, and then for no reason it would end, cancel the download, and I had to start over. As far as I could tell, this was because the Flickr connection speed was terrible, but I tried it for several days in different browsers and even different computers, all with the same result.
Eventually, I found Flickr Downloadr , which, while archaic at first glance, could at least download all of my photos at once. And then I had to install several different frameworks for the application to work. Once I did that and got used to the fact that the app was not entirely in English, I was able to upload all of my photos.
Over the years, we have talked more and more about the importance of data portability to the point where it is now one of the most important aspects to consider with any service. The point is, no app or service will last forever, and at some point, whether it’s because the company does something stupid, the service goes broke, gets bought out, or starts to suck, you’ll want to leave. The ability to do this is very important. I’m even paying for my note taking app now because it offers lightweight data portability.
Why did I choose Google Photos even though the Google Privacy Statement always scares me ? Because if I decide to leave,it will take one click to download my entire photo archive .
Here’s another sad confession about my relationship with Flickr: I did try to get away a couple of years ago and transfer everything to Google Photos, but gave up halfway through because I had the same upload problems that I faced quite recently. This made the second attempt even more difficult because I not only had a sunk on Flickr, but also one failed migration.
This time I went through it, and after a week my photos were finally uploaded and available.
Flickr’s bullshit upload capabilities are poor, but that doesn’t mean they’re the only ones doing it. Apple is notorious for making it difficult to export your files, and many productivity apps, especially business apps, make it impossible to navigate to something else using any type of automated service. Even exiting a service that seems easy, like Evernote, can get complicated, and you’ll lose some of your formatting in the process. Flickr, for all its awkwardness and outdated design, at least kept my photos in their original resolution and format.
Anyway, I learned two lessons from this whole silly process: don’t let time wasted get in the way of you leaving it, and make sure your data is easy to take with you whenever you sign up for a new service. …