Shift | London, United Kingdom | 2006

The basic economics of the photography industry have been absolutely, fundamentally, permanently upended, flattened by the democratization of the tools of the production and a shift in the technologies, mediums and methods of communication.

The old model is done. The Getty - Flickr deal, a tie between new and old, is an old DNA move, another example of Yahoo’s inability to use the energy and innovation of its acquisitions (Flickr) to change the way they do business.

Opinions have differed on whether the deal is good or bad, but almost all of the opinions I have seen have completely missed the point.

Getty and Flickr (Yahoo) are framing the deal on traditional, orthodox sources of advantage, yet those sources of advantage are dead.

The Getty - Flickr does nothing to address the key issues facing the photography industry, a massive supply and demand imbalance created by:

• A declining demand for still images
• The shifting nature of demand and a re-evaluation of “quality”
• An explosion of supply

The massive increase in the supply of images is obvious. Everyone is a photographer. Everyone has a digital SLR, a small digicam, a camera phone, or at least is next to someone that does.

And while the quality of the overwhelming share of the new supply of images is questionable, it doesn’t matter. Images are used to tell a story and communicate, and we can communicate without the best images.

Communication has never been about pure quality, but rather about exchanging information efficiently, and once you accept photography as a form of communication then you completely change your expectations and use of the medium. (link)

It has always been true, but is even more apparent today: the best camera is the one we have with us.

At the same time, traditional buyers of photography have needed to adapt to newer, different ways to communicate with their audiences, adopting different mediums and methods of distribution, leading to a fundamental change in the business models for traditional photography.

We are seeing a huge shift in media from static, asynchronous communication to a more dynamic, synchronous, interactive form.

And yet photographers haven’t learned to adapt to this newer, richer model of communication and interaction. Photography needs to be a part of a broader media, a broader way of connecting with people, a component of a richer mixture of multimedia (audio, video, still, interactive). Vincent Laforet is spot on. It is not just about creation, but interaction, interpretation and re-interpretation. Controlling static content for resale is a dying model; photographers need to adapt to learn to sell the experience, sell the process of creation, sell themselves as experts rather than creators of content.

Flickr understood these broad industrial shifts and created a way to popularize these trends to bring photography to a wider set of people. By exposing consumers to a broader set of photography and photographers, created, shared, critiqued and discussed by “regular people,” Flickr played a part in reducing the need for “professional” images and professional gatekeepers of content. Getty failed to adapt their business to these trends and as a result went through their own problems, questionable business decisions and an eventual sale of the company.

But since being acquired by Yahoo, Flickr lost its way. And the Getty - Flickr deal is not going to bring it back.

I wonder if this impending Yahoo - Flickr deal is what caused Caterina and Stewart to leave? Read Stewart’s resignation letter and tell me what you think…