Re: Important letter from Flickr’s CEO

Comme, je sup­pose, tous les uti­li­sa­teurs de Fli­ckr, j’ai reçu un très long mail (en fait, deux : je l’ai eu en double à dix minutes d’in­ter­valle) de Don MacAs­kill, le CEO. Je vous le mets ci-des­sous, en com­pres­sant légè­re­ment les par­ties qui ne font que bras­ser du vent.

Lorsque j’ai sou­hai­té répondre, j’ai eu la mau­vaise sur­prise de voir que ce mail ren­voyait à une adresse “noreply@flickr.com”. C’est pas que je sois contra­riant, mais quand j’ai quelque chose à répondre à quel­qu’un et qu’il me fait le coup du “nore­ply”, non seule­ment je mets un point d’hon­neur à trou­ver un moyen de lui répondre, mais je le fais savoir.

Voi­ci donc ma réponse. C’est en anglais mais je pense que c’est assez clair pour que tout le monde comprenne.

Hel­lo Don,

I’ve been on Fli­ckr since 2006, and I’ve been a Pro user since 2009. Yep, 10 years now.
I like the ser­vice, I like its qua­li­ty, I like how the pho­tos are dis­played (I tend to mix very dif­ferent ratios). So here I am.

But I’m not that hap­py with how you manage it.
I mean, you just DOUBLED your rates last year, and now you have the guts to send a whi­ney let­ter to the long-stan­ding paying cus­to­mers, saying “baaaaah we’re so good with you but we don’t make enough money baaaaah” for lite­ral­ly 690 words before sly­ly adding in three small words that rates are AGAIN going up, and not even saying how much they will rise?!

In late 2018, two of my clo­sest pho­to friends didn’t renew their accounts because of the sharp increase in costs. I stuck with you because I hadn’t any time to look for a bet­ter ser­vice elsew­here and because of, well, habits. Now I feel like this fide­li­ty is not rewar­ded, not at all. I mean, you don’t even have the basic decen­cy to tell me exact­ly how much the next rene­wal will cost me!

And worst of all: you use a “nore­ply” address to make sure we can’t easi­ly ans­wer!!! Well, sor­ry, but then I’ll have to make this an open let­ter so you can read it anyway!

To be per­fect­ly clear: unless your poli­cy evolves rapid­ly, regar­ding rate increases as well as clear and honest com­mu­ni­ca­tion (ie. not hiding the impor­tant infor­ma­tion in a 700+ words rant), that will be the end of our 13-years relationship.

Have a nice day,

Franck Mée