I know who removed the "authenticity" from the Flickr logo. Rands, nothing authentic was removed.

The Flickr logo was Flickr (beta), and then Flickr (gamma), before it was Flickr (loves you). They all served their purpose, ran their course, and it was time to move on. That's authentic.

It's surprising to me that so many commenters are just being exposed to Flickr's style and design approach. It's ancient web history at this point. But at least people are taking it to heart, learning from it, and hopefully making other things better because of it.

Long live Flickr.