An exaggeration of lowering prices to $1 resulting in earnings of millions, required an equally proposterous exaggeration in the other direction!
But still... an exaggeration of $5000 still makes a valid point. Nobody would buy any of my clips at they were that much and people are buying my clips because they're not that much. But there's not some hard and fast line, some cutoff point where people will and won't buy. But every dollar you increase your price, it does reduce the chance of somebody buying your work. I'm not saying that an extra dollar will mean one less sale, just that people do look at the price tag, no matter how much money they have, and the more dollars you add on the harder it's going to be to justify the purchase.
Were in a crazy new world where people need more and more content and they need it better, faster and cheaper. The thing is, producing stock is also becoming better and faster and cheaper. Can we justify charging, and can buyers justify paying, $100 per clip when the average budget for a production is generally on the decrease... especially if you include Web content in that average?
And all my clips are $50 anyway! Well, on Pond5 they are. More on other sites, a lot less on Envato, obviously!