Maybe that's the case, but if so it still doesn't make sense. Facebook puts ads on your content because it's a free service. If you are paying for Flickr, they really shouldn't be putting ads on your content, regardless of whether it's you or another user.

It makes perfect sense, you just don't like it.

I bought and paid for something called an "Ad-Free Account".

It doesn't make "perfect sense" to me that an "Ad-Free Account" would deliver ads to anyone. The name strongly suggested that the visitors to my gallery would be free from ads. That's exactly what I wanted and what I was happy to pay good money for.

Sure, you could say it's my fault for not reading the fine print. But you have to admit that the very name of the account was highly misleading.

I'm glad they changed it so now my visitors are free from ads as the original account name led me to believe. Still, it sucks that they used such a misleading name in the first place.

By your logic a company should not consider anything but maximizing revenue for every single product decision. While some successful companies follow this strategy, like Comcast and 90s era Microsoft, it only frustrates and angers customers until they wish for your demise. It's also a very cynical way of looking at the world. It's possible to both profit and make the world a better place.

Good point, perhaps I just misunderstood the terms of the account. Also I thought I had a "Flickr Pro" account but apparently it was just an "Ad-free" account which is now being converted to Flickr Pro. So the whole thing may have been confusion on my part, but it sure caught me by surprise.