May Yahoo! die impoverished

It may not seem like a hard decision, but it hurts. I've been a loyal Flickr user for the past three years, and somewhere between its simple design and sensible offerings it has won my heart. The entirety of my year in Italy I posted photos to Flickr, and it became a source of connection between myself and my friends and mother at home. So it's a matter of sentimental value; and I'm fond of it as one of the few really decent interactive websites I've encountered.

Today I received an email which read:

Dear Old Skool Account-Holding Flickr Member,

On March 15th we'll be discontinuing the old email-based Flickr sign in system. From that point on, everyone will have to use a Yahoo! ID to sign in to Flickr....

You can make the switch at any time in the next few months, from today till the 15th. (After that day, you'll be required to merge before you continue using your account.)

Thanks for your patience and understanding - and even bigger thanks for your continued support of Flickr: if you're reading this, you've been around for a while and that means a lot to us!

Warmest regards,

- The Flickreenos

And now Yahoo! has taken the place of Satan in my mind. I despise Yahoo!, I despise its takeover of Flicker, I despise the fact that it intends to coerce all Flickr members to join Yahoo! by buying out the company and then making our Flickr IDs invalid. This is unforgivably manipulative, but I think it's also the kind of capitalist behavior that dominates our society. Win, conquer, eliminate. Yahoo! wasn't wealthy enough, apparently - but are you ever really wealthy enough in this hyper-competitive society?

So the hard decision that I'm going to have to make is this: will I leave Flickr in order to boycott Yahoo!, or will I stand by Flickr despite the Yahoo! takeover? I hate the idea of my support and (currently) my money going toward Yahoo!, so at the moment I'm leaning toward the former. But the idea of leaving Flickr is really kind of sad. I have till March 15th to decide, though, I guess.

And honestly, can we talk about how obnoxious it is that Yahoo! has an exclamation point in the name? That's so self-glamorizing, and frankly, it's just stupid.

posted by Holly @ 6:58 PM