Flickr restrictions imposed

While we still maintain that Flickr is probably the best way to handle your photos online, the service is starting to annoy people as Yahoo! tightens its grip on the Web-based app. If you’ve managed to build up more than 3,000 contacts or 75 tags using the program then prepare to be disappointed – you’re no longer welcome.

According to Flickr’s owner, Yahoo!: “In our ongoing efforts to make Flickr better, we’re introducing two additional limits: the new maximum number of contacts is 3,000 contacts (good luck with that), and each photo on Flickr can have a maximum of 75 tags. We love your freedom, but, in this particular case, limiting these things will actually improve the system performance, making pages load faster across the site for everyone and cut out some unwelcome spammy behaviors. Both of these new limits apply equally to free and pro account members.”

While we can appreciate the case for reducing spam and increasing download times, it seems that the company is penalizing Flickr’s hardcore users just for the fact they’re enjoying the site and the community it has to offer. Instead of applying restrictions to the user perhaps Yahoo! could improve its file sharing system to allow everyone to share their photos without worrying about limits.