I suspect that the change is more to do with the cost of storage than with re-creating some photographic community that may have existed before 2013. But I'm also happy to be proved wrong.
Yes, I am just using Flickr for storage. And while most of my albums are public, my photographic skills are fairly average compared to many on Flickr, so they are unlikely to be able to monetise my efforts. But I'm not interested in being part of a "photographic community" because, while I enjoy photography, I don't do it to be in a community. And I suspect that they see community participation as basically user-generated content creation, and I'm not into that either.
I'm happy to accept that I'm not a user they can support for free. I like Flickr, wish it well, and am happy to pay for pro.