New owner, new changes at Flickr.

Flickr was recently acquired by Verizon after much rumor, the pricing and terms were undisclosed — however the new owner made no secret that it wants to reign in some of the less profitable areas of the company. One of the first changes to be made in December last year was the removal of the ability for users to print their photos or slideshows (Protip: if you want to embed a slideshow onto your website then the free tool here works great). A more established website than other rivals, Flickr throughout the years has experienced an absence of consideration and assets, while different organizations started venturing up their endeavors in the photograph facilitating and photograph sharing space, including Facebook, Google, Apple, and Amazon, among others.

However, under Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, there was a reestablished interest in Flickr, following the securing of a few organizations, including Ghostbird, IQ Engines and LookFlow, went for enhancing Flickr’s product and its picture acknowledgment smarts, in addition to other things. In 2013, Flickr reported the presentation of photograph books as a local element of its stage – you could simply drift over a Flickr set to create your book. Previously, Flickr hosted permitted third-get-together locales to empower photograph book creation utilizing its photographs, yet this exertion was the first run through Flickr had made its own particular in-house device for the procedure. The next year, Flickr developed its photograph book offering to enable clients to transform individual photographs into divider workmanship. Soon after, it opened this up to professional picture takers, as well, so they could pitch their photography as divider workmanship to other Flickr clients, making Flickr more focused with locales like 500px, for instance.

However, the fact that there is now so much competition could also have contributed to Flickr’s decision to shut down its print businesses. There are plenty of other places today to order prints and wall art. Plus, Flickr’s own service was a little pricey ($35 for 20 pages, higher than Apple’s books), but without key advantages in terms of customization or ease-of-use to really differentiate it as better than alternative offerings.

The company says it’s offering Flickr Pro members a $35 credit towards their first Blurb order and another $35 towards a second order of $70 or more when they renew. Meanwhile, users who had started a photo book or wall art order on Yahoo but hadn’t yet finished it will have until December 1, 2017 to wrap things up. Order history will also disappear after that date.

In Flickr’s user forums, members don’t seem too upset about the shutdowns, saying that the news is “not surprising” or that they “understand the move.” Others noted photo printing was just not something they do, or not something they turned to Flickr for.

It remains to be seen how many more useful features Verizon will remove in a quest to make the company more focused and profitable again.