Flickr just lost its appeal -- and the war against Google Photos

Flickr has made a big comeback after giving users a whopping 1 TB of free storage, but now it is ruining everything by making a very important feature of the service available only to paying customers.

Flickr has announced that Auto-Uploadr, the software that enables users to upload photos from a desktop device, will only be offered to Pro and Pro+ subscribers, leaving users on the free tier out in the cold.

For a Pro subscription, users have to shell out $5.99 a month, while for an annual Pro+ plan, which adds a 20 percent discount to a number of Adobe subscriptions, the cost is slightly lower in the long run at $49.99 a year. Flickr will temporarily sell you a Flickr Pro+ plan at a 30 percent discount -- use the "FLICKRPRO30" coupon code to redeem this offer -- but this seems set to expire in two weeks.

On top of what the free plan currently offers, including Auto-Uploadr, the Pro subscription adds advanced photo stats, ad-free browsing and sharing, and savings on standard shipping for Flickr photo merchandise. Basically, not much that might appeal to the majority of users.

For those who only want to upload their photos to the cloud from a desktop device, that is $5.99 a month or $49.99 a year just to be able to use Auto-Uploadr. And that is a very high price to pay for what is basically a must-have feature.

Auto-Uploadr is a big part of what makes Flickr attractive, but if that feature is now limited to paying customers why should the other users not migrate to a rival service, like Google Photos?

Unlike Flickr, Google Photos does let you easily upload photos from just about any device -- there are apps for Android and iOS, and tools for Windows and OS X on the desktop side. Google Photos also does not impose a limit on how much storage space you can have for free as long as you are happy with the "high-quality" standard -- and that is perfectly fine for most people, myself included.

I also believe that, for the majority of users, Google Photos is easier to use overall, from something as simple as uploading content from a mobile device or a PC or Mac to sharing photos and videos. You also get the added benefit of integration with other Google services, like Drive which plays host to your photo and video collection.

So why should anyone bother with Flickr anymore?

Photo Credit: maraga/Shutterstock