AT&T to stop giving U-verse users free access to Flickr Pro

It may be easiest to bang on those cable carriers who all seem to hop on the price hike bandwagon at the same time, but AT&T's making a name for itself in the up, up, up department. Shortly after hearing that a few U-verse TV components would be priced higher come February, we're now clued in to the fact that U-verse users will no longer have gratis access to Flickr Pro. Beginning on January 31, 2009, those currently using a Flickr Pro account will downgraded to the free version of Flickr unless they opt to pay the $25 yearly fee. Who knows -- maybe not enough users were taking advantage? Either way, the news sure bites for those who've been enjoying it on the house.

[Thanks, Justin]

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 28th 2008 11:35PM]

I was getting excited about U-verse coming to my area but it seem like they're just increase whores like the service providers we already have. Maybe FIOS will be different.

[James T Posted Dec 27th 2008 8:17PM]

Do FIOS and U-verse ever compete? I can only get U-verse.

[BananaBoat Posted Dec 28th 2008 5:05AM]

Very rarely. That his name is trolly should have been a tip-off.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 27th 2008 8:19PM]

Who the heck uses Flickr anyway? wouldn't bother me.

[galfridus73 Posted Dec 28th 2008 2:43AM]

My wife easily uploads 10GB of pictures a month to Flickr and she's not alone. A lot of people use it and a lot of people care. It's a slick app with a ton of storage space and a rather mature user community. Flickr is, arguably, Yahoo's most promising service outside of Zimbra (now if Yahoo would just figure that out), and that's even on top of their supposed "search" business.

That said: Who the hell uses U-verse? Comparable pricing to Comcast and trading one evil for another (though I would argue AT&T is more evil than Comcast) doesn't make me, for one, want to jump ship.

In fact, I just dumped pay TV across the board and couldn't be happier (poor AT&T sales rep really didn't get that idea the other day when he caught me working outside). In the $80+/month I'm saving I can easily afford to let my wife keep her $25/year Flickr Pro account.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 28th 2008 6:39AM]

@Geoffrey

1st..just make the $25 fee part of your wifes Christmas present. That's what I do with my wife's cell.

2nd..who pays $80 for cable? I pay like $110 (after tax) for phone, internet, and cable with HD DVR box. When i use to have them split it was like $60 or $70 for phone and DSL and $50 for extended cable (no HD channels and no DVR)

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 27th 2008 8:43PM]

Not just AT&T U-verse users, regular AT&T DSL users too.
Also Verizon users.
See here: http://www.flickr.com/help/account/#452229

[Bryan T Posted Dec 28th 2008 1:42AM]

seems like U-Verse is cutting MANY corners these days, no?

[gescamil Posted Dec 28th 2008 1:43AM]

flickr is great for posting pictures online, so you don't have to use shit like imageshack or whatever. This news really pisses me off...

[Garst Posted Dec 28th 2008 3:53AM]

I didn't even realize the correlation between Flickr and AT&T until it was reported that AT&T customers will no longer get a complementary Pro account. Then I was like, "I could have been using a Pro account using my AT&T [read: SBC] account? DAMN IT!"

[BananaBoat Posted Dec 28th 2008 5:10AM]

No kidding. When I heard about it, I was like "I could have....Flickr Pro....for free.....Whaaa?" Atleast I won't miss what I was never using in the first place, but it does suck to learn about the free member benefit after it's already gone....I could have made use of it.

To answer everyone's question about why anyone would want U-Verse.....ATT DSL tops out at 6mbit around here. ATT U-Verse tops out at 18mbit. The Cable company tops out at 8mbps (until Docsis 3 anyway). If triple the speed isn't enough of an incentive, I don't know what is. Now if they'd only bring U-Verse to my street....the street over has it....gah.....

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 28th 2008 10:31AM]

@ BananaBoat

With a cute name like BananaBoat, one has to assume you take it up the ass.