Anil Dash says Flickr should pay the users that are most interesting and therefore make them the most money. Caterina Fake says there’s more to life than money and “the culture of generosity is the very backbone of the internet.” Others weigh in – Jason Fried, Matt Gertner, Robert Scoble. I feel the urge building to write a time-waster of a manifesto. And then I see, on Scoble’s blog, this comment from Paul Mooney:
Profiting from user generated content is Web 2.0 colonialism.
Brilliant. The metaphor works on many subtle levels. My urge to write a book has passed; thanks, Paul, for saving me the time!
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As one of the so called “exploited” I’d be quick to point out that I disagree with Anil and feel that I personally get as much out of Flickr as they might get out of my photographs.
Reprinted below is a comment I left on Robert Scoble’s and other’s blogs on the matter:
“I’m one of those photographers on Flickr who is supposedly getting ripped off at Flickr (per Anil). Nothing could be further from the truth. At present I think I get around 1,000 to 2,000 views of my photostream there daily and have had several of my photographs rank in their “interestingness” category. I’d guess that based on my Flickr traffic I’m in the top 1% of photographers on the site by way of traffic.
For those of you who have not experienced the Flickr community in all it’s glory it’s really something pretty amazaing and unique. Stewart and Caterina are as involved as anyone in the community and I do not believe their involvement is simply about getting paid. Most of the top photographers at Flickr are there primarily out of the joy of their photography and Flickr gives us a unique ability to share that joy in a extremely strong community focused around our passion.
This being said I’m reposting a comment I left yesterday on Om Malik’s blog regarding my own thoughts as a photographer on Flickr as well as a link to a story I wrote on the subject after seeing Anil and Caterina’s posts:
“There are a number of ways Flickr users benefit even if not directly in an economic sense for their contribution.
1. Flickr allows users to build an audience for their work which can potentially be monetized later (and don’t underestimate what Flickr might come up with).
2. They provide bandwidth that small websites can’t always afford for bandwidth intensive high res photos. I was bounced off my website once when Boing Boing covered a Disneyland photo essay that I did. Cory was able to redirect people to the same photoset at Flickr where they paid for the bandwidth not me.
3. Exposure both now and in the future (especially with a possible greater integration into Yahoo! image search) can provide for outside economic gain. (example, I sold a photo for $500 to Choice Point hotels for a television commercial that they found on Google Image Search — although it wasn’t found on Flickr, Flickr has the potential to overtake Google Image Search as the best image search engine on the internet)
4. Most significantly, Flickr offers a vehicle for interacting and sharing art with others in a selfless way — complete with total ownership of images posted by their members and the ability to creative commons license their photos. I’ve received a great deal of joy from the knowledge that my own photos are enjoyed by others. In fact, to the extent that images of mine in a creative commons world become popular, this may in fact enhance their economic or artistic value for commercial use in the long run.
There is something to be said for the psychic income of providing enjoyment purely for the benefit of others. I’ve had several people ask to use my photos for everything from The San Francisco Ethics commission website to a non-profit film festival, to a first time unknown author for his novel cover, etc. I’ve been told by many people that they use my photos for wallpaper and it’s great to know that I can share a little bit of my craft.
5. Through the social interaction part of Flickr I’ve met some really cool people — especially through Flickr meetups and the group delteme uncensored (which is a little bit of an outlawish rouge type of group on Flickr but with a truly wonderful cast of characters).
It’s also interesting to note that I still have not even paid Flickr for my Flickr Pro account. My current Pro account was gifted to me by RoudyBob (another selfless act).
I give a lot of myself and share a lot of my work in the Flickr community — if they benefit I’m glad because I get every bit as much out of the relationship as they do.”
http://thomashawk.com/2005/10/flickr-caterina-fake-anil-dash-wealth.html
I don’t think the question that we should be asking is, “Should Flickr pay content contributors?”. It should be, “Who will pay content contributors?”.
And a further question that I have, “Who will allow people to make money distributing content?”
Apparently not flickr according this post at Flickrlicious.
Since the invention of the media business, businesses and individuals have made money creating, packaging and distributing content. The web enables these 3 processes to be distributed among millions of people. Flickr doesn’t quite get that.
Money needs to flow, as much as content needs to flow. Or else the system doesn’t work.
I say, “The culture of generosity is the very backbone of naivette.”