Paul Cowan made a good point on another board, that the proliferation of tiny upstart micros actually hurts photographers. They cause us to waste a lot of time uploading to small companies that never (or seldom) actually pay off for us, while at the same time they peel some buyers away from the bigger, more lucrative agencies.
But I do agree that some competition is good to keep contributors benefits going up. Really, though, I think the Big 7 (with BigStock) are enough agencies to keep competitive. And sales there would go up even more if they were the only micro options for buyers...
I agree 100% with the above.
Me, too...which is why I'm in the process of leaving all of the small sites, like Crestock and Canstock. I've already left FP. The only small sites I will try from now on are those in different markets. I'm still waiting for one to open up in Australia, Japan, and the other untapped areas.
Even though I wholeheartedly supported LO from the very beginning (I liked its kitschy-ness), I also worried that it would more than likely fail simply because there are so many stock agencies already in Northern California competing with each other (BigStock, FP, LO and most recently Albumo).