Trevor pays for a Pro account on photo-sharing site Flickr, and he’d like to continue doing so. Unfortunately, Yahoo, Flickr’s parent company, doesn’t seem to want his money. The payment page gets caught in an infinite loop when he logs in using his Yahoo account. Flickr keeps giving him complimentary extensions of his Pro account, but is that a viable long-term solution?

I have been trying to renew my Flickr Pro account since February. When I click “Okay, I’m ready to pay!”, the page goes to a Yahoo sign-in page to confirm my account, and then it just loops. I click “Continue” on the confirmation page and it just takes me back to the confirmation page again. Fortunately, Flickr staff has been supportive, and offering me free extensions and saying they have escalated the case to their engineers.

I checked their forums, and apparently this has been a recurring issue for some users since 2007. I explained to them that they offer a very elastic service, and there are dozens of other photo sharing services willing and able to accept my payment, and that Yahoo really should be able to fix its payment system, especially considering its current financial situation.

Although I’ll keep accepting free Pro account extensions, I’m not sure how much longer I should even keep trying to pay, or even uploading photos to the service, given Yahoo’s situation. Do you or your readers have any advice?

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