MicrostockGroup

Of course it's different.  My point is that from the perspective of a person looking for an image, he/she can go to a high price agency, low price agency, or find something for free.  These options all compete with one another.  The images you're trying to sell are in direct competition with many similar images that are easily obtained for free.   It looked like this conversation was turning into a complaint against low-cost selling or even free collections, and I was pointing out that there's a competitive need for approaches like this.  If microstock is going to survive, it has to wake up to this reality and do things like offer sets of images very cheap or even free as hooks to lure in people who would otherwise just steal.

The pitiful <.10 royalties on Istock are for the main collection of images, including best sellers, new content, etc.  And unlike donating free images, we have no choice at all, short of removing our entire portfolios.  It's insulting. 

That and the fact some peeps there can inspect their own files without having to wait in the queue,  and there's this elite group of contributors who get their files moved into vetta, into istock lightboxes, in front of the searches etc (im not talking about those pseudo-exclusives here, but about 'regular' contributors who seem to be the favourite sweethearts). THAT's favouritism, not peeps trying to negotiate a deal...