I got an email the other day letting me know about a change in the terms of service for the Kodak Gallery. The bottom line: no more free photo storage if you don’t spend money.
Of course, there’s no shortage of websites that allow you to store your photos at no charge. They have become popular for sharing photos with friends, family, clients, and others. And they’re generally free. The service makes up for this by encouraging you to purchase prints or other products featuring your photos, and in some cases through online advertising.
So, I had to wonder if this was the beginning of the end of free online photo storage. I seriously doubt it. It is a common opinion in the industry that Kodak’s best days seem to be behind them. I suspect the Kodak Gallery has been losing money, and this is a last-ditch effort to make it profitable. I suspect its days may be numbered.
In fairness to Kodak, the requirements to maintain storage for your photos is pretty low. If you have less than 2 gigabytes of photos stored with the service, you only have to spend $4.99 on prints each year. If you have more than 2 gigabytes of photos, you need to spend $19.99 per year. But when there are so many alternatives out there, I have to wonder if this might spur an exodus to other sites that offer similar storage and photo printing options without the requirement to spend a particular amount of money each year.
Kodak also allows one to pay a flat fee of $4.99 annually to keep the photo gallery on their site. I was glad to pay it. Why would I do this? Because I bought Kodak digital photo frames (wireless internet) for my parents, who live at opposite ends of the country. Their frames are flat-out the best on the market. When I post on my Kodak gallery, the results appear on the photo frames! My parents don’t have to deal with technology, they just leave the frames on. Totally worth $5/year to me.