And while I think the site strikes the balance decently at the moment, Pro is too expensive for ads to get more intrusive (for the Pro user and for others looking at his/her photos).
But as I hope was clear, I'm a big supporter and would love to see the platform continue to thrive. If you're ever looking to bounce thoughts off a user, or anything else, I'm happy to help!
Alas, Flickr wouldn't even be alive if we hadn't increased the price ($$) and value (features) of Pro relative to things like intrusive ads on free accounts, etc. The very reason it's alive is because we have intrusive ads on free accounts, but no ads on Pro accounts, including for viewers. I don't expect that to change anytime soon.
We have some great plans to further increase Pro's value, but we disagree that Pro is too expensive. Relative to our peers, it's a bargain for unlimited storage, advertising free, etc etc.
Love to bounce future ideas off of you, and thanks for the article!