MicrostockGroup

Here are my thoughts:

In recessions and depressions, sales for everything (except the basics of life) decrease.

Staples (the basics of life) are things such as food, energy, toilet paper, etc.  Everyone still needs those things to live, so they will continue to spend on those items.

But other things that are not mandatory (including stock photos) will lose sales.

While some companies will move to the micros to save money, other companies will no longer have a budget or completely go out of business (thus decreasing sales at the micros).

Sales are going to go up and then down on suscription sites...  People will download everything they can out of their suscriptions and then will stop downloading... It's going to be hard the next couple of months...

This is most likely to be the worst month this year for me.
October in 2007 was the BEST month that year... This sure doesn't look good...

http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/content_display/photo-news/photojournalism/e3ia353f77f11f28ab9bbc5a67cfad15f35

Here's a good news/bad news article. Bad news if you sell RM through Corbis (although they say they expect revenues to increase even though the royalty rate is cut). Potentially good news if you sell via the micros as they seem to think that relatively to RM, they will fare better over the next few years.

Not sure what to make of the notion that overall the industry will shrink over the next couple of years. I see lots of images being used - perhaps it's just the revenue that's shrinking as more sales come from the lower-priced RF sites.

You are correct.

The traditional stock licensing that makes up most of the industry will shrink at an even faster rate, Corbis predicts, as low-priced microstock services grow and take more market share.

This was interesting too, down near the bottom of the article.

Corbis faces a tough fight against market leader Getty Images, which will grow in size by bringing the Jupiterimages brand into its fold. Getty said Thursday it will pay $96 million for Jupiterimages, which was valued at well over $300 million during failed merger talks last year. The price of the deal reflects the bleak outlook for Jupiterimages.