MicrostockGroup

There are several very different categories of vector. There are design elements and icons, which primarily sell to designers doing more illustrative design themselves early on in the process. This market wants their stuff cheap and RF, as they are probably working too a very tight margin themselves and will be doing work with/ too the elements before they are the "final product".
Then there are the complete scene type illustrations that can be used as is to illustrate an article etc., there is more overlap with the photo market there, it's creative directors buying this stuff further down the line. This second type does much better as RM than the first.
This is also the market Getty understands better because of the overlap I mentioned, they don't seem to interested in serving the lowly designer at IStock anymore.

True, but I can't see that dropping the crown and going indy is any more difficult than sitting there with your pretty crown on your head, watching your images earn less and less everyday until sales dwindle down to nothing and your images are buried so far back it doesn't matter. At least dropping the crown is trying to take a step forward. Doing nothing, to me, seems like going backwards. But I do believe that it's way more of a challenge today that it was a couple of years ago. Kind of a catch-22.

Except instead of being verbally (lobo), mentally (best match), and physically (disappearing dollars) abused like from the "one abusive spouse", the several partners just yell a lot. The abuse from the "several partners" no where near equals the abuse from the one.

Yesterday, on SS, my downloads averaged .67 each, the day before, .82, some days even higher. Sure, in an overall sense, that's low priced. I wouldn't call it extremely low priced, as compared to ThinkStock at .28 per DL. Which is where I'd be now if I had stayed at IS. Fotolia? I don't go there, so no abuse taking place.

I guess everything is relative. And really, I'm not trying to convince anyone. It would actually be in my best interest for all the exclusives to stay right where they are.     Just providing a little balance in point of views.

I would agree with you there, unfortunately for the exclusives.