To go back to the "good old days", it will take WW3 and the eventual nuclear fallout which would wipe out 99% of the Earth's population. The few survivors will spend the remainder of their lives scrounging the Earth for whatever resources are left.

After a few generations, the Earth's population should recover to a few million, probably in the South Pacific and high-altitudes (less affected by radioactive fallout). Standards of living will slowly improve and in 2103, Internet 2.0 will re-emerge.

More advanced forms of digital commerce will take off and businesses will need to promote their products and/or services. Then, they will turn to Microstock and since there will be few photographers left and technology will be relatively primitive, those contributors should earn more than the equivalent of 36 cents an image in today's currency.

Sad to say, but with the population growing very fast and the available resources not growing at all, there is no other solution than a massive exode to other planets, massive control of the fertility or a massive destruction of the humanity
We can speak of any other problems, but this is the only real problem.

When does it get to the point that the top quality producers feel that it just isn't worth it anymore? If/when that time comes, that would be a turning point. Yes cameras are "cheap", but models, locations, time and other production costs aren't.

Aren't these the golden days?

For some of us, yes

Quote from: Chichikov on August 25, 2017, 07:54

Quote from: Brasilnut on August 25, 2017, 06:01

To go back to the "good old days", it will take WW3 and the eventual nuclear fallout which would wipe out 99% of the Earth's population. The few survivors will spend the remainder of their lives scrounging the Earth for whatever resources are left.

After a few generations, the Earth's population should recover to a few million, probably in the South Pacific and high-altitudes (less affected by radioactive fallout). Standards of living will slowly improve and in 2103, Internet 2.0 will re-emerge.

More advanced forms of digital commerce will take off and businesses will need to promote their products and/or services. Then, they will turn to Microstock and since there will be few photographers left and technology will be relatively primitive, those contributors should earn more than the equivalent of 36 cents an image in today's currency.

Sad to say, but with the population growing very fast and the available resources not growing at all, there is no other solution than a massive exode to other planets, massive control of the fertility or a massive destruction of the humanity
We can speak of any other problems, but this is the only real problem.

They always said that!
First they predicted coal reserves will end soon. Then an oil based economy emerged and doomsday got delayed.
Then they predicted oil reserves will be exhausted soon. But deep drilling technologies appeared, and doomsday got delayed.
Then they said again that oil resources will be exhausted soon. But fracking appeared together renewable energies and doomsday got delayed again.
Then you predict a new doomsday. But new technologies will always emerge to delay doomsday.

So don't worry, we will be fine for the next million of years and more, unless some unstable and narcissistic man with access to nuclear codes has different ideas

Resources are not only energetic resources.
What will happen when the capacity of food production of the earth will not be enough to feed all the humanity?
Already millions of people don't have enough to eat and the population is growing every day.

This year, from the first of August humanity lives on credit. Since this date we have consumed all the natural resources that the planet can produce in one year. And this "day" always comes earlier every year.
So, what will you do then??

(But we are off-topic, sorry)

Is this conversation about stock photos, or is it people pedantically arguing about oil reserves? No wonder there is such a problem with keyword spam.

As far as I'm concerned this thread is about bringing back the "golden days". Photography is heavily impacted by technology advancements, same as coal, oil, newspapers, etc ...

Maybe you should take a step back and look at the big picture. It is better to understand what is impacting the forest, before trying to save a single tree.

So no spam here, only analogies.

How many of you wake up hoping that Shutter's poor sales is just a nightmare and will go away? I know I have. I keep telling myself this will pass and sales will come back- but deep down inside I know they will not.  SS will only account for 10% of my overall sales now...

Model released stock is the key to eat! most people give away work but do not provide a model release. Most of my video and images are model released or property released or both! At Graphic Stock the buyer will pay $4.00 for an image if they are a subscriber, artist gets 100% after banking fees so around $3.50 now you can just buy an image for $9.99 and not be a subscriber as well. I don't mind their free/subscriber library as they bought those images at a fair price for their subscribers it is a great advertising tool!

Quote from: Zero Talent on August 25, 2017, 10:00

Maybe you should take a step back and look at the big picture. It is better to understand what is impacting the forest, before trying to save a single tree.

I am really only looking at stock from a buying perspective these days - I have not uploaded any RF stuff for at least a couple of years now. But I use stock photos.

As I posted above, keyword spam and too much irrelevant content is a big issue when looking for content to buy. Another reason I haven't been using Shutterstock, iStockphoto etc is that they stopped accepting Paypal. I mostly prefer to use my credit card via Paypal. Or else I am sometimes using money received via Paypal to buy stock.

I see! I thought you are an active contributor!
From a buyers' perspective you should enjoy the abundance and the low prices these days. It is a buyer's market, indeed.

But I fully agree with you on the spamming and garbage a customer has to weed through, before finding what it is needed.
I also guess people like you will certainly welcome a faster access, through curation, to the quality content already available, or even pay a premium for it.

We already see movement in this direction from a few agencies. I believe this can be a good improvement, both for customers and contributors producing quality material.

Back to just film would do it nicely. As long as digital exist forget it!

Quote from: derek on August 25, 2017, 12:35

Back to just film would do it nicely. As long as digital exist forget it!

I have few friends that use to work for Kodak and I am sure they feel the same way towards digital 

Digital is great and PP is great fun!!  but its turned photography into a mass hysteria. Its sort of taken away the charisma it once had. It used to be associated with art and professionalism but today you might as well say youre a stall-holder in Petticoat-Lane, selling jumble stuff.

A global virus that killed 90 to 99% of all stock producers? That should do the trick. Or some kind of 'carousel' like on Logan's Run, where anyone who has been producing stock for 5 years has to sacrifice themselves for the betterment of the next generation. 

Run runner!

I have been, first escape was stop feeding the parasite agencies and keep supplying the good ones that pay. But at that point, people here are all deaf, and can't hear the message. Anyone with one photo on DP, 123RF, Panther, DT, BS or anything below that, is killing their own sales, with their own price cutting low value desperation to make a few more dollars. STOP! If you have integrity and your work is artistic or out of the ordinary, stop driving your own value down.

Micro will never be the way it was. The world economy has people who live from this work, to survive. There are collective agencies that pay them per image. There are managers who own all their work, for the loan of a camera. We can't compete with that. And those same people are feeding the price cutting agencies to keep them in business, competing with those of us who have some integrity and value.

An easier answer is, world of over supply, limited demand for the product. We will all make less. Nothing will ever be the same and it will never be the way it was. Now it's all about finding a smarter way to make your product available and desirable to buyers. The nobrianer days of Micro are well past, and history. I have high confidence that the agencies will never care about us as individuals when they have suppliers begging to be taken advantage of for less and less pay.

The industry will never go backwards to this "golden era" people speak of.  I do like the idea of much higher standards from curators and deleting old, low quality content... even whole portfolios.  I started in 2015, apparently after this "golden era", but my monthly income keeps going up as I keep adding clips to my portfolio.  Last month (July) was actually my best month ever on Shutterstock.  I guess just keep up with modern trends and work your ass off!

The complaints of today's microstock photographers sound remarkably like the complaints of traditional stock photographers in the early 2000s when microstock started to take off.