Interesting news, Steve. I wonder if we'll see more coming here.

They never learn. Why can't these photo sites just keep what users like and get rid of what they don't? In most cases, they know very well what the consensus is for different features and if they don't then they aren't listening. They forget that their survival depends on whether members like using what they've built!

That could apply even more to social sites - Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and so on.

I wonder what the ones that complained about Ipernity/ IMA ripping them off will do now. Many of them have large free accounts at Flickr;-)
I must say I rather like the fact that paying pro members will be privileged on Explore from next year. That would also be a rather nice thing for Ipernity to have but I guess it costs too much to implement.

It's a good point about Flickr's expense now being about what Ipernity's membership costs. Flickr had looked like a h*ll of a bargain, but it was not sustainable! I still used Flickr for mass backup, figuring that if Yahoo was foolish enough to offer it for free I might as well take advantage of it. However, I also figured it would end at some point, as it has--apparently the storage costs were even more of a drain than I realized. Another of Marissa's boneheaded decisions; as people have pointed out, she basically invited everyone to come and dump all their photos, with little concern as to how Yahoo might make money from it. (Recall how quickly she backpedaled after eliminating pro memberships at first. That was an early indication of problems with the business model!) Anyway, since at the end of the day the pro membership is about what Ipernity's is I'll probably go ahead and pay it, and keep my backup cloud storage over there. I still find the interface cumbersome enough I probably won't be participating in the "community" much anyway. But you can never have too many backups--

"Recall how quickly she backpedaled after eliminating pro memberships at first." Yeah, but I don't think SmugMug will do the same with the mess they are now causing on the Help Forum.

Anyways, I'm new here ... and I think I'm going to like it. Everyone so far has been (surprisingly) very welcoming. ... and everything seems to just work. Hope to meet all of you in due time. ...

Thank you for your warning about this situation. I get the Oath prompt every time I use yahoo or flickr, but this is the only real news I've read.