I think it is a good analysis in many aspects, it is obvious that adobestock needs to be refined. He is also pointing out that adobe is the biggest change the industry has had and they have so much money they can potentially become the largest marketplace if they want to.

However, he forgets  that fotolia has a large number of exclusive images and especially a much better choice in localized european content.

They also allow anyone to add exclusive images, a third way instead of being fully exclusive like on istock.

There is a reason that fotolia is the biggest agency in Europe.

Fotolia also has a very active macrostock section, that hasn't yet been included in adobestock.

The only thing really missing is editorial, and again Adobe has enough money to build the best editorial agency if they want to.

I agree that the returns for searches are much more accurate for istock and Getty. That is one of the real advantages they have.

But SS has the fastest site and for me as a contributor still offers the best upload experience.

They are a very innovative company and the new competition is going to make them think very hard.

So although adobe has the money, I don't think SS is in immediate danger. it is the weakest agency that will suffer first, which means unfortunately istock will continue to lose customers to adobe and SS.

Their site is very buggy and they don't have the same budget for advertising. And they are no longer attracting many full time exclusive artists.

They could easily increase their exclusive content with exclusive Images, like getty has, but ...it would be the logical thing to do...I mean, exclusive content is their only real advantage left.

But who will go fully artist exclusive now, if Adobe gives you all the options? Place exclusive images of your favorite niche with them and spread the generic content everywhere.

If they then include a sensible upgrade path to place a certain percentage of your exclusive content into macrostock, they'll have a real killer of an offer for contributors. Together with better sales, this can become very successful, very quickly.

So the discussion of fotolia exclusive content, their successful smartphonestock section and macrostock are missing.

But in the end, all we need is more sales. If you are indie it does not matter so much which agency it comes from as long as people keep buying your files.

If you have decent portfolios everywhere, you can sit back and relax, while the agencies fight it out.

Fair analysis, Adobe are smart enough and big enough to fix many of the teething issues. He's right about one thing though, if agencies keep competing on price they'll have an endless supply of mediocre images which clients are tiring of.

Isn't Yuri just planting the seeds of improvement for Adobe, HIS COMPETITOR? I am not sure why Istock would want him to do this because now Adobe can take his "consultancy" and integrate any changes they think will close some of those "gaps".  Moreover, isn't Stock's collection an open floodgate for mediocre images? And finally, we had a thread one time about the awful images on Getty. Is this an open mouth insert foot comment?  I still respect Yuri's rag to riches story (maybe no riches any longer though) but he has become the spokes person, consultant for everything GI/IS and it's been a complete disaster.

What a load of rubbish.  For him to conclude that he would not have contributed to Adobe "back then" is nonsense - he used to contribute to every agency out there, including losers like Crestock that had much lower commission rates and far clunkier sites.

Complaining about a 33% commission rate while also touting iStock (and not bothering to mention that theirs is 15-20% for independents) is disingenuous.

While he had some valid points, the piece was mainly propaganda to push his own site. 

So far this month I'm making about 35% more on FT compared to iS and that is the most important number.