Rogers HiSpeed axes Flickr Pro
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- “Rogers HiSpeed Internet customers are outraged that yet another part of their service, Flickr Pro, is being downgraded,” says an email.
Say what !? Rogers messing with customers?
Again?
It’s true.
“Rogers has begun sending out emails to thousands of their subscriber’s announcing this downgrade,” says the email.
“Flickr Pro, a popular online photo service included in the monthly Rogers ISP fee, is yet another part of the cobranded service between Rogers and Yahoo! to hit the chopping block.
Customer’s have been told if they want to keep Frickr Pro, it’ll cost them $25 US a year.
If they don’t pay, their accounts will be throttled.
Here’s the letter »»»
Dear Rogers Yahoo! customer,
We are writing to inform you that on July 1, 2009, your Flickr Pro account included with your Rogers Hi-Speed Internet service will change to a free Flickr account. The free Flickr service has many of the same features as Pro, but is subject to some limits.
Your existing photos or videos will not be deleted as a result of this change. If you have more than 200 photos in the free Flickr account, only the most recent 200 are displayed. Other changes include:
⢠100MB monthly upload limit (10MB per photo)
⢠2 video uploads each month (max. 90 seconds and 150MB per video)
⢠Only smaller (resized) images accessible (though the originals are saved in case you upgrade later)
If you enjoy the full flexibility and storage capacity of your current Flickr Pro account, you can maintain your Pro account by subscribing directly to the service for $24.95 (USD) a year. Subscribe before September 1, 2009 and get two months free. Click the link below to subscribe:
»flickr.com/upgrade
For additional information or questions, please visit:
»help.yahoo.com/l/ca/rogers/flickr/index.html
We want to thank you for being a Rogers Yahoo! customer. It is our pleasure to provide you with an enjoyable online photo experience.
Sincerely,
Rogers Yahoo! Hi-Speed Internet Customer Service
Our email goes continues »»»
Angry customer’s have spoken out against this on popular blogs such as DSL Reports.com http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r22387487-Flickr.
DSL poster Sbrook notes, “first Rogers dropped the name Rogers Yahoo! HiSpeed Internet in favour of just Rogers. Then Briefcase goes (granted it’s no huge loss), Then Geocities goes (no huge loss), but nothing to replace it Then Yahoo!’s internet radio goes and nothing to replace it that makes sense, and now Flickr goes with nothing to replace it except the freebie service that everyone gets.
In other words Rogers isn’t doing enough for Yahoo! so Yahoo! is saying tough bananas Rogers.
Just wait … mail will be next.”
And let’s not forget to mention that Rogers HiSpeed Internet paying customers have for months been subjected to advertisements that paster the interface pages of Rogers Yahoo! webmail.
Keith McArthur, Senior Director of Social Media and Digital Communications at Rogers Communications chimed in and posted this statement on DSL Reports and Digital Home Canadian message boards:
“A very small number of our customers (less than 2 per cent) took advantage of the Flickr Pro service. For the vast majority of our customers, the bigger priority is faster speeds and more reliable service.
Last week, we doubled download speeds for hundreds of thousands of customers. We continue to invest in our network and look forward to bringing increasingly faster speeds to all our customers.
McArthur further states in a reply on The It Nerd website http://itnerd.wordpress.com/2009/05/14/rogers-screws-high-speed-internet-customers-by-charging-for-flickr-pro-wtf/:
“Thanks for including Rogers side of the story in your post. We’re trying to do a better job of listening and explaining ourselves to customers – even with respect to business decisions that might be unpopular in some quarter.”
Rogers HiSpeed Internet customers, “are beginning to realize that perhaps the only good reason for Rogers existence in to providing an internet connection extends beyond nothing more but the assurance of soaring yearly costs, severe bandwidth caps, overage fees, throttling P2P, with no added bonuses or frills attached,” it adds.
Stay tuned.
(Thanks, K)
May, 2009
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May 16th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
Was so confused for like half of the article… I was like “WTF is this ‘Frickr’ thing that they are getting. Sounds like Rogers is mocking Flickr!” But no, it is just someone not knowing how to spell
May 16th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
Hi Jon: I too was confused by “Frickr”. I catch P2Pnet news in an RSS aggregator, and only get the first paragraph or so (insert plea for full-text feeds here). I thought that Rogers was throttling a competing photo service in order to promote its own co-branded Yahoo! Flickr service, and thought we had a juicy story about Net Neutrality violations. Maybe a story about Frickr vs. Flickr trademark violations.
I consider P2Pnet an important news source, and not editorial opinion and commentary. But on the other hand, the editorial commentary is a valuable addition to the Joe Friday news (”Just the facts, Ma’am”).
Is there some way to tag the difference? Maybe a new tag, “EditorialComment=50%” or something…
–Bob.
May 16th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
Hey Bob:
Point taken. I’ll see what I can do.
Otherwise, as regards Frickr as opposed to Flickr, see what happens when you lift straight from something else?
Cheers!
May 17th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Thanx Jon!
–Bob
(Just curious, was the text lifted from an e-mail from ‘K’ as in “Thanks, K” ?)
June 3rd, 2009 at 7:13 pm
WARNING !!!!!!! be carefuful when you talk to a customer service representative or retention department in Rogers. Most of them lie or do not give you all the information correctly. It happened with me when i took rogers internet. without telling me, agent put me in to contract. i spoke to the manager and requested him to play the call and i was told that no recording is available to play. Agent made a false note saying i accepted the contract. i tried to confirm the manager that i was not told about any contract and i did not accept anything like that but nothing worked. So please be careful from this lier agents of Rogers.