Buyers at istock are buying there based on its original intent...microstock. They expect to NOT pay $100 or more for an image. Thats why micro was started...companies dont have those kinds of budgets anymore where they can hire a photographer or pay $100-200 for a single image.

and then they should leave this business, it's a disgrace there are so many pretentious cheap ass-s fly by night "companies" around.

just leave the rock bottom biz to students and their stolen Flickr images, nobody will notice.

Quote from: Ron on June 21, 2013, 06:21

 If the buyer doestn want to pay a fair price, then the buyer is the problem. Sorry, but thats not a disgraceful argument. Buyers can make or break a business.

I got a two minus for that. I guess those two 'photographers' agree that selling an image for 0.16 cent is a fair price then and that any buyer opposing to pay anything more is not the problem.

Give me break.

0.16$ ? i would go as far as saying 1$ nowadays wont get you too far even in places like India or Cambodia !

last time i was in Delhi with 1$ i could barely get a bowl of rice and it was in a hole in the wall in one of the roughest areas, i can tell you ... even poor indians will refuse to move a finger for 0.16$  and the beggars easily score 5-10$/day with tourists.

buyers must wake up and shut the F up.

Quote from: Ron on June 21, 2013, 06:21

 If the buyer doestn want to pay a fair price, then the buyer is the problem. Sorry, but thats not a disgraceful argument. Buyers can make or break a business.

I got a two minus for that. I guess those two 'photographers' agree that selling an image for 0.16 cent is a fair price then and that any buyer opposing to pay anything more is not the problem.

Give me break.

I guess it's your lack of understanding of basic business concepts that is getting you the negative votes, not disagreement over the return to photographers being lower than it often should be (not that I voted you down myself).

I don't think anywhere sells images for 16c, though some agencies sell the cheapest licence for about $1 and  skim off 85% as the middle-man's cut.  Apparently you don't consider that to be a problem.

Quote from: Ron on June 21, 2013, 06:21

Buyers can make or break a business.

No they can't. It's management decisions that do that. If the buyers go away and the business sinks its because a lousy management couldn't pitch its product at the proper level, or got its sums wrong and just generally misunderstood the market that it was meant to be supplying.

If the buyers demand lower prices, who's the problem then?

Who decides when the pricing is right? I would like to believe thats the buyers who determine when the price is right. In this case the price they think is right is far too low. Thus breaking the business. I agree its about finding the sweet spot.

Who decides when the pricing is right? I would like to believe thats the buyers who determine when the price is right. In this case the price they think is right is far too low. Thus breaking the business. I agree its about finding the sweet spot.

The buyer mentioned in the OP was complaining about images costing from $70 to $155.  Do you think that's far too low?  I think that's too high for microstock.

Who decides when the pricing is right? I would like to believe thats the buyers who determine when the price is right. In this case the price they think is right is far too low. Thus breaking the business. I agree its about finding the sweet spot.

"Market forces" is the shorthand term. It's a compromise between the terms you and I are ready to supply at, the price and cut the middle-man thinks he can get away with and the amount the buyer is willing to accept. It varies according to who you are dealing with. I had a top-end Fortune 500 company contact me about an image they had found on iStock or SS asking if I could upload a close-up. I shot it again, uploaded to Alamy and they bought it for $530 (and someone has bought it since for another $77). That's great - but it was a special need that only I was in a position to meet (and I'd prefer that one of the world's top 40 companies wasn't buying microstock).  Alamy obviously spotted that they had the cash, too, since I think that is the second-highest sale I've had there.

No, it doesnt matter what we want. The buyers are the ones complaining and leaving, as they rightly should. Heres an idea...why dont the micro sites work together, like many other industries, and all make a move to slowly raise prices on all their sites? That way, everyone keeps their piece of the pie, and everyone wins, assuming those price hikes are shared with contributors. The answer, of course, is that it will never happen...because of greed.
...

Isn't that why the book publishers are being taken to court right now?  Banding together to set prices?   

I agree with several people here, the problem is the royalty %.   I am fine with providing photography for a low cost market - my production costs correspondingly low (I am not hiring models or renting studios), but I would much rather get $5 or $7 for that $10 sale instead of the $1.50 I get now.     

I understand the agency should get a cut for marketing, providing the purchase interface,  quality control and legal paperwork.   But is that worth 85%? 

I would guess the downward slide will eventually hit bottom enough to drive out many of the high production value folks out of the micros and on to somewhere else.   Dunno how low it will have to go before it hits that point, though.    This micro industry is still relatively young, I imagine it will  consolidate and settle out at some consistent level.   

The individual photographer has to decide if they are going to ride it out and hope for the best, or keep changing and finding new avenues for income.    There appears to be a resurgence in "mid" stock niche agencies as well as the grassroots Symbiostock project going on right now.  Who knows what will catch on and find that hole in the market like iStock did back in the day.   

As far as I understood they wanted images costing less then a tenner. I just sold an RF image on Alamy for 255 dollar. I guess thats fair, for me and for the buyer. Unfortunately I only get 30%.

No, I think you've read that wrong.  They mentioned they used to pay around $10, not that they want that price now.  They were complaining at the $70 to $155 that istock want for the images they want now.

Quote from: Mantis on June 21, 2013, 06:31

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on June 21, 2013, 04:51

Quote from: gillian on June 21, 2013, 04:38

but if that designer were to hire a photographer to get the shot(s) they need (if that's even possible) they'd pay a lot, lot more.

How can you make that argument and be a stock photographer at the same time? In any case, it's head in the sand stuff: Stock exists, so a lot of people will use that instead of hiring a photographer; microstock exists, so a lot of people will use that rather than paying more at a traditionally-priced site.

And the problem is not the buyer, that's a disgraceful argument. Microstock was set up to provide images for the masses who couldn't afford traditional stock prices. The problem is, and always has been, that buyers don't have barrels filled with money to lavish on photographers, they have budgets that they have to work within and if an image is outside that budget they have to find it cheaper somewhere else or do without.

Istock apparently wants to go back to the days when only elite corporations could afford pretty pictures for their adverts and brochures, before some evil market-wrecking company started giving images away for almost nothing. What was its name, oh, yes, that's right, iStock.

Paul,

I would reciprocate by saying that what did buyers do before digital? I was involved on production photography in a previous life and it was nothing to pay $1500 to $2000 for a two hour shoot.  The point I made above is that while the micros "invented" the cheap image model, we supported it by uploading and uploading and uploading.  Now buyers have become accustomed to paying peanuts, and the micros continue to create price wars, and we continue to support it.  If micros weren't around buyers would still be paying much higher prices and this topic would be moot.  I think we need to ask ourselves, what is the definition of cheap? $70 an image? .28 cents an image? Will a buyer be coming into a forum a year or two from now saying, I am going to xx agency because I couldn't fine any images for .15 cents, .28 cents is just too much?

OK so it's our fault. Nobody should ever have supplied the micros. So why are you here?

If the micros didn't exist some buyers would pay more and a lot of others would do without. I remember the pre-digital days when adverts were full of crummy line drawings that would make people laugh these days.  Why? Because small advertisers couldn't afford better. THAT was the market microstock was invented for.

I never said I wasn't supporting the part of the problem, I am.  Your points are valid, but all I am suggesting is that the critical mass supply has created allows micros to offer cheaper and cheaper and cheaper images, while we (me included) continue to support it.  Buyers become accustomed to the pricing and that perpetual motion is difficult, if not impossible to reverse.  Now, I have done a lot less micro lately and have been working on my underwater work, but positioning it in RM.  I have also taken a more rigorous approach uploading to POD sites.  So in a way I am hoping I can phase out of micros, but that will take time.

I am really tired of hearing the iStock invented microstock myth. Ron Engh must get a laugh out of that. Before the internet photographers maintained an inventory of stock photos. Designers maintained a list of photographers. The internet helped a lot but we were still either mailing slides or cds. There were plenty of galleries online to browse images and you could contact the photographer direct. I was selling stock locally for about $50 bucks a use. The small business that couldn't afford a big agency bought local. In the 90s I even made some book deals for multiple images. And in 2007 a buyer from outside the US license one of my images directly (RF) for $1,000, so there was a range. They were still cheaper then the big stock companies. One day a designer said he wasn't going to pay $50 bucks anymore because he could get everything from istock for a buck. I said not my photos. I eventually joined micros because the prices were rising. And the main reason was that it was open source. It was always difficult for a part time photographer to get with an agency. I used to read Photographers Market and most agencies wanted an initial submission of thousands. With open source I no longer had to market myself. Microstock was as much about open source as low prices. So now Getty has lots of price levels and I am thrilled that they just moved some more  of my photos to Getty where they will sell for $600. And they do sell. People who want my images pay the money. Oh yeah just hire a photographer for a $100 bucks and get a peregrine falcon in flight. Not going to happen. An isolated paper clip, yeah. There is room for all price levels. I have not seen a decrease in revenue, despite the fact I am not very active. I can pay my mortgage and bills now out of my microstock earnings now even though I have less downloads. No complaints here and I have a few images in the PP program for those on a low budget. Oh yeah I do have a complaint. I saw one of my images being used widely in ads as the lead photo in an international marine industry convention. I only got $12 bucks for the download. I am sure they would have paid a lot more if they had to.

Yep.