What is Envato doing with their new Unstock site?  Moto = 'Authentic stock photography.  Always $5.'

The site is accessed by a banner at the top of Photodune, and probably other Envato sites too. 

Anyone hear about this?  The photos look for sure like standard stock photos.  I didn't see any of mine, but I don't know if they are there or not.  Are they using other stock to compete with us that sells on Photodune?  What portion do the artists get?

Whats up with this?

The images are free for anyone who wants to take them, for up to 1500 pixels. I clicked on a  vertical image it was 1500 x 1000 pixels, No watermark. On the horizontal image I clicked the image was 1000 x 667 px, No watermark.

omg what fuckers!

Quote from: Microstock Man on October 26, 2015, 23:44

Shame it wasn't communicated to photographers first.

Do any of the agencies bother to do that anymore?

I got an email from Envato this morning about the new collection.  Not much details in the email however.

wow... these images are huge! this has to be a mistake or an oversite. or just plain stupidity.

I m sure its stupidity.

To me, it looks like they are trying to compete with the free photo site Unsplash, which is quite popular. https://unsplash.com/

The hipster, non-stock looking stock look is all the rage.

Looks like they are trying to copy stocksy with their unstock collection plus the image preview makes sure no one needs to buy any small size images any longer. bye bye blogger market

This are two different things. Those who need to buy stock images will always do it with or without watermark.

Thanks for answers.  My gut said this was not good, and the huge previews and word this is experiment that may (will) end up at photodune makes it certain.  Anymore watching what these sites are up to is like watching the news.  Bad news every day.

I remember when many of these newer sites started by blabbering about how they were contributor friendly and fair, not like the big greedy sites.  And I  fall for it and upload my port.  Seems like they all cant wait to screw us out of commissions now, either giving away giant previews or cutting price/commissions,  or both. 

Odd that's there's no keyword search window.

I was just going to comment on that.  I would think that is forthcoming. Why on earth would a buyer just scroll for hours looking for an image? They wouldn't.  Has to be coming, but why they would launch without that feature is wobblywonk. The site is purchase ready but useless without a search.

check their forums, there is a brief explanation from Collis (the CEO) that its basically an experiment to see if they should make massive changes to PhotoDune.

Shame it wasn't communicated to photographers first.

haven't had any sales with what little i have there. i am sure you too are mostly the same.
so, if you cannot sell your stuff, you can either put up a bankrupt sign like a shop without
any customers usually ends up doing,
or give your our work away for free.

thx for the info, pixelbytes, i am off to delete my images. i won't rush as no one has viewed any of them so, not much risk of anyone finding them in a hurry