MicrostockGroup

Just for the record, I don't have a washing machine or a tumble dryer. I have a maid who hand washes my clothes and then hangs them out to dry. Although I'd love to upload my dirty washing to iStock and let them do it, but I imagine they would  reject them saying these clothes have artifacts when viewed at full size.

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LOVE Downy Wrinkle Releaser! It's hard to find around here so if I get the chance, I'll buy it out!
= mild hoarding tendencies... 

Perhaps laundry is a more interesting topic.

tip for you.. I dilute mine up to 50/50 (water/downy) and it still works great!

I must try this, thanks for the tip.

That seems to be the istock company line these days, increasingly so since the royalty cut. There have been quite a few comments made along these lines, that the hard workers won't see their earnings suffer, the talented folks will be fine, etc. I think the intention has been to shift the focus more towards the istock pros and away from the hobbyists, which isn't a bad thing necessarily. Microstock is growing, maturing, and it's not so crazy to think that these companies need to mature, as do the contributors who wish to continue earning decent money in this business.

Where I think istock may have gone wrong is in how extreme a dividing line they drew between pros and hobbyists. The rate cut only left a fraction of a percent of contributors unharmed, despite claims from HQ that most people wouldn't be hurt by the change. Many "pros" were obviously caught in the lazy slacker category on that move. I'm sure the same effect will be seen in these upcoming changes as well. JJRD can say that if you're working hard and you've got some talent, you'll be fine. But really what that will likely mean is that if you're super talented, super productive, and your images are in the highest tier of quality and usability, you might be ok.

Trust me, I'm as far away from that trap as anyone can be. I know exactly where the blame should be placed.

^^^ I think the over-supply affects mainly mediocre/poor images. Whilst once they attracted enough sales to keep those who produced them motivated to upload more I think that is happening much less nowadays.

The volume of 'new images added this week' at SS has almost halved in the last year. It certainly isn't going to 200K anytime soon. It is getting harder and less rewarding for many contributors and so they are either giving up or uploading fewer images.