Things are not going so well for Yahoo, and in the last quarter of 2015, the company reported losses worth $4.43 billion. To make amends, and also to steer itself towards profitability, Yahoo is looking to scale back some of its operations.
Recently, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer announced that in order to combat the rising loss percentage, the company has decided to cut down 15% of its workforce (nearly 1700 jobs).
More importantly, Yahoo has also decided to trim down some of its non-essential ventures. For instance, products such as Yahoo Games will soon be shut down. However, most surprisingly, a service that should otherwise not have received the punishment is on the chopping block: Flickr will be scaled down, and will soon see some cutbacks in near future.
To be clear, Yahoo is *not* shutting down Flickr, but it has decided to scale it down. In other words, Flickr will be alive, but Yahoo has decided to reduce its investment in the online photo sharing service. Flickr will soon be operated with minimal overhead, and resources and funds meant for Flickr might be allocated to some other venture within Yahoo’s umbrella.
Last year, there were rumors that Yahoo is planning to sell Flickr. Of course, that has not yet happened. Oddly enough, Flickr is one of the very few Yahoo services that continue to grow in popularity (such as Tumblr), with more and more photographers using Flickr for hosting and sharing their photos. With the planned scaling down of the service, it will be interesting to see if Flickr continues to enjoy its popularity, or will users be compelled to move elsewhere.
What do you think of this move by Yahoo? Share your views in the comments below!
This doesn’t surprise me in the slightest. Yahoo has never had a clear on what Flickr is all about and has bounced around from pro accounts to free and back to pro again. The sooner they sell it to a company that appreciates what a gem this service is, the better.
Flickr scaling down isn’t a good new for web designer. But I can also understand Yahoo. The competition has been rude particularly last year.unfortunately yahoo is not the only one to scale down and to make some adjustment
Nooo! I used Flickr before Yahoo! This the only service I use from Yahoo! I even had a paid membership when that was a thing!
You can’t cut your way to profitability. Any CEO would know this. It’s the CEO that should be cut. It’s the decisions that Mayer did that placed yahoo where it is. Hey Mayer … ” You’re Fired!! ” BUBBYE