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Unlimited Bandwidth.
Daily Ink
Stored in: In Situ
Posted On: December 14 2006
By: Bryan Partington
Photo © luisa_m_c_m_cruz
Flickr dropped the 2GB monthly bandwidth cap the other day and now I have more space on flickr than I rightly know what to do with.
But then, I've always had more space on flickr than I've rightly known what to do with.
In nearly three years on flickr, I've never come close to exceeding the bandwidth cap. I don't suspect that many of the people reading this post have either. For the most part, only the most prolific photographers have hit the cap, usually while uploading the highest resolution originals.
This is because 2GB per month is a lot of space, but also because flickr rewards selectivity. The more shots you post, the more difficult it is for your contacts to follow your photography. This "Social Bandwidth Cap" is far more important and restrictive than any monthly gigabyte count.
Just as data flows in and out of flickr, information flows around the social network. But what's interesting to me is how both ultimately become a common currency of exchange. Photos are means to expression, and it is the impressions they leave on people that are the important thing. The ability to push these expressions through to a wide variety of different people, and to do so in a way in which they have meaningful impacts on people is a more important strength of the social network. I guess what I'm trying to say is that we have photostreams, not photofloods, and that by narrowing focus we can increase the force and intensity of the torrent.
Which is not to say the additional bandwidth that flickr now offers is bad, just that flickr isn't really a photo backup service and that I don't expect it to become one now that they've opened the floodgates.
1 comments on this Ink
On December 14, 2006, Phillip Chee said ...
Very salient points, Bryan. When I first started using Flickr two years ago, one of my motivations was for backing up my original photos. The bandwidth cap on the free accounts made that unfeasible, but even when I went pro, the original motivation for backup fell by the wayside as I became more involved in the social networking aspect of Flickr.
Otherwise, in In Situ:
- Previously: moo review [revoo?]
- Next: A Magic Donkey Christmas
Utata Ink is a daily publication edited by Bryan Partington (striatic). Photos used on utata.org are stored on flickr.com and obtained via the flickr API unless otherwise noted. To make a contribution to Ink, please visit Ink Me.
