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Messages - everest

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1
Long time contributor.

The explanation Getty gave is fishy to say the least.

I just don't buy it because on the strong discrepancies of the amounts paid in every transactions.

I think it is long due a deep auditory of their accounts.
Personally I don't trust their accuracy, transparency  and honesty of their statements.

2
All stock agencies will dissapear in 3 years with maybe the exception of Adobe.
But lets see how the downfall of this industry plays out..




You guys all wrong, all but Getty and Adobe will disappear in max 3 years, the industry is changing almost every quarter because AI. SS disappearance will shake the dying industry. SS business model is now obsolete with many agencies offering the same garbage to the public.

3
Shutterstock.com / Re: Is Shutterstock dead?
« on: February 24, 2024, 04:59 »
Just try it out. You will see why the stock sites don't stand a chance. And it will get more and more easy for customers to create exactly what they want with the style they want . a 100% match ...not a 50 or a 80% like the stock sites offer. We saw the demise of the film juggernauts like Kodak, the demise of Vinyl or CDs in music and now we will see the quick collapse of the stock agencies in front of our eyes in a very short time.

It is a total game over for all stock producer. This will no longer exist in 5 years at most.

I'm not agree.
It's this market model that is collapsing, smart companies will find new models to survive

About the images and video self production, you seems to forget that they will cost money: probably not less than thew money for stock subscriptions. And after the money you have to know how to manage the AI tools.

It will be of course quite simple to get a tomato, a senior man happy on the beach, and billions of simple images.
But there will always need to illustrate concept, feelings, ideas.

And you need to know what to produce more than a tool that produce anything

4
Shutterstock.com / Re: Is Shutterstock dead?
« on: February 24, 2024, 04:56 »
I am quite sure that in at most 2 years only a 10% of the subscribers will remain in Shutterstock or the other sites. We will see . it does not look good for them. When SORA will be out it will be the final blow.

From the report:

Subscribers: 523,000, down 63,000 year on year

Income from operations decreased 27% to $68.4 million

Operating cash flows decreased $17.9 million to $140.6 million

.......

It seems they're maximizing their profits as much as possible. Yet, if subscribers start to leave, I question the bright future they're promising.

5
Shutterstock.com / Re: Is Shutterstock dead?
« on: February 24, 2024, 04:55 »
I agree with that. This is because they are quickly positioning in that direction. Unfortunately, Adobe stock has lost that race , even if there where many that pointed to expand in that direction. Now it is too late for them to catch than train.
Even with Firefly I doubt they will be able to compete against Microsoft Open Ai/Sora or Google Gemini.

And Getty and Shutterstock will barely survive with editorial.

the AI models are evolving so fast that in no times customer will no longer need to look into a library. Not a second. They will generate what they want and with tons of option, styles etc.

I think there will always be a demand for editorial photos.

6
Shutterstock.com / Re: Is Shutterstock dead?
« on: February 24, 2024, 04:52 »
They are dead and we will see their stock value plummet in the next 2 years. Same will happen with getty. They don't stand a chance against Openai or Google Gemini. It's over for the stock sites. Even Adobe I doubt will be able to compete with this huge players.

They can always increase their own profits by cutting payments to producers even more. On Getty the lowest paid is 2 or 3 cents.

And if they add the exclusive pond5 content to the SS subs plan, many customers will return or they will get new customers.

They will keep getting uploads and if their main focus is ai, is high quality content even needed for licensing?



7
In 2 3 years from now Stock photography will be completely dead. This is so disruptive that nobody will loose time scouting a huge database when with a few promts you will get what you want and nearly free.

The only type of stock photography that will survive is editorial. This might be the reason SS is buying editorial agencies because they know the creation of images and video will be of Open AI, Google and the likes. The stock sites are irrelevant. Not Getty nor SS will survive this Tsunami. May be Adobe because they are a powerful software company that might battle the giants.
I think they have no chance against OpenAI or Google

This is game over Weird that some people do not understand that already

8
Shutterstock.com / Re: Is Shutterstock dead?
« on: February 19, 2024, 06:28 »
You need to understand that it is not Shutterstock, it is the whole stock industry that is collapsing. In at most 2-3 years every contributor, and I mean everyone, will be down 90% with all agencies combined.
Yes some are making more in Adobe stock because AI is permitted but the AI models are evolving so fast that in no times customer will no longer need to look into a library. Not a second. They will generate what they want and with tons of option, styles etc. Video will take only a little longer to follow that path but as we saw with SORA just a few days ago it is arriving faster than I thought.

It is a total game over for all stock producer. This will no longer exist in 5 years at most.

9
You are basically correct, and that's the way most subscriptions keep a much higher royalty rate in photos and videos. Shutterstock at the beginning of the year might be paying 10% maximum as average to contributor s because clients do not max out their downloads. Getty does the same. Adobe is no different with that.
The only fair deal is when an agency gives the contributor the percentage share based on their total revenue divided between contributors downloads. Adobe is not fair in this sense, as most others are neither. The 35% is just not true anymore once the subs quicked in.



Adobe in both models (for simplicity) keeps 67%, gives contributor 33%. But in reality - in the 2nd model, if a buyer only downloads 1 clip - Adobe is actually keeping 97%, and only giving the contributor 3%. Many times buyers don't actually use 'all the credits' in a subscription pack, and may only use 1-2. And in fact - many times they may be purchasing the "clip pack" simply because they want "your" clip.

a) In model (a) if you sold a $100 clip, you get $33. Adobe gets $67.

b) If you have "$100 plan" instead - where someone gets "10 clips". The buyer still pays $100. However, since most buyers don't use the full "clip" - and as I mentioned they may have only signed up to get "your" clip (with the "promise" of more if they wish, which many don't use)  - now you only get 33% of "$10" aka $3, and adobe keeps the rest ($97). (As an aside - obviously the subscription model has an added bonus for Adobe & other companeis - in that people forget to cancel/don't cancel/etc - as well as not using their membership - so in reality that $100 sale became a $300 sale, and you get 1% ($3) while Adobe (& other similar companies) keep the remaining $297).


10
I am fine with that. The only thing I care is contributor percentage fee and as far as this does not change I will still contribute to Adobe my videos.
I don't contribute a single video to Istock - Shutterstock since many years ago because of the lower royalty rate.
Everything that is lower than 30% is out for me by principle . I do not care how many million 0.10 or 0.001$ sales they make per unit.

11
Incredible.

Scammers and dishonest people everywhere nowadays.

I hope that Unsplash (Gettyimages) makes the right move and asks Amazon to retire all these dishonest books. :(

12
I finally opened an acount in XTB with close to 0 maintenance fees but an exchange fee of 0.5%.  I think you have to make 1 operation a year at least of buying selling stock. As I al already doing that with another broker this will be no problem for me. I think if you are doing less than 1000$ month it is more hassle than benefit but for me paying 0.5% instead of 5% with Payoneer will save me thousands of $ in fees every year.

This is really a bridge solution until stock site will begin accepting WISE instead of the much more expensive Paypal/Payoneer or Skrill that are only good if you are in the US.

But don't brokers cost money?

13
Hello. Also interested to know. I work with DEGIRO broker. Unfortunately they only accept funds from a bank account. Already researching brokers where double account in and US $ are possible and that accept Paypal money incoming and outgoing transfers.

This is a good way to work. I don'tr care to need a little more time if I can save a lot of money at years end. Thanks for your contribution.

**** So far I have found that this is possible with XTB and eToro. XTB is looking good.

Hi

I am European and I like all of european contributors I recveive in USD on my PayPal account. So This is what i do.
 I opened an account on a FX broker (that suport Paypal), inside the Broker I create an MT4 USD account and another MT4 account in EUR.

Then I send my money in USD from PayPal to the brooke. Its like an instant payment (literaly take a new seconds) in USD to my MT4 USD account. And then I convert my money from the MT4 USD to the MT4 EUR account. That way i have a much better rate conversion rates then PayPal. And even better if involved more money. The only issue is that I have to send it back again to PayPal but in EUR that time, (you have to withdraw from the broker to the same way you deposit the money) And finally withdraw from PayPal to my Wise account in Euros or another EUR Bank account, ias free.

Is seems a lot of work, but its really easy, sometime I do a small FX trade to justify having an account on a Broker and thats it.

Best regards to you all

Reply

14
If you pay with your card something that has the price in dollars you don't have fees but if you do so in any other currency you get a "Transactions involving currency conversion up to 3.5% fee.


This new 3% transfer fee + 2%exchange fee of a mediocre exchange rate will cost me a few thousand dollars this year.

I really hope WISE becomes more popular among stock sites.

Everyone has a Payoneer card, you dont have to withdraw money and pay in stores with this card.
You can also withdraw money from your card at a local ATM in local currency.

Are you in the US? If so, have you tried withdrawing through an ATM in another country with it?

This method has its own drawbacks.

Bad conversion rate + Payoneer $3 fee per transaction + ATM access fee (around $5-$6 per transaction) + international transfer fee.
The withdrawal limit of ATM (maximum cash per time) in each country determines the number of transactions you have to make.
I don't live in the USA. But many of the commissions you write about do not exist, or they exist, but not in all countries. Yes, every bank in every country has its own limits on issuing banknotes through an ATM. But, all these questions can be clarified, for example, by withdrawing money from an ATM.
If you pay by card, there are very few (if any) fees.

15
When this happens then we can move along to greener pastures. It took 15 years for Payoneer to become greedy. I would be happy if I can operate with Revolut or WISE with reasonable fees for another 15 years.


These Revolut or WISE will also increase their commissions as soon as stock agencies start working with them. This has already happened with Skrill and Payoneer.

16
I have been trying out the software and I have to say it is quite good. It is simple to navigate, uploads to agency are quick and the interface is quite modern. You can select the jpgs attached to video files. CSV export is a breeze and already preconfigured for many agencies. I have not tried the submit plugins yet

I had a few questions after the start that were answered very quickly on their telegram support page. Quicker than stock submitter through the chat service. Impressed.

Will I jump from StockSubmitter yet? Not yet, but I keep an eye on it. The largest problem I encountered was to reorder keywords (very important for Adobe stock). I usually submit more than 1000 video clips when I am back from a trip. They are separated by subjects. The problems with Imstocker is that if the files don't have the exact keywords they do not appear on the general keyword panel so you can rearrange them. That forces you to go one by one and rearrange. In Stock Submitter you can select 20 files and even if they have different keywords all of the keywords appear on the keyword panel, you rearrange and every file will have their own keywords rearranged.

This is a huge time saver for me and the reason that for the time being I will still have to stay with SS and pay much more than with Imstocker. I have been told that they might add this feature in the future, so i will keep an eye n it.

It would take me more than a few days to go over +1000 files to rearrange individually, so a large package at SS even if quite more expensive than Imstocker is worth it .

I really like this program and I can see myself using it in my workflow as my main upload/submit option in the future if they can iron out. Also a digital signature would be great so that Norton or Microsoft Defender do not see it as a threat.

Kudos for this development and also for their amazing keywording web site.

17
I also think those choices are have become way to expensive. Much more than the old bank transfer system that was already expensive.

With great option nowadays like Revolut or WISE I wonder why stock sites are staying with this expensive option for us that really hack our hard earned money.

Really hope Adobe can take a look into more favorable options for their contributors.

18
I see more and more better options that Payoneer or Skrill that have have hefty fees.
I heard of Revolut and now just discovered another one WISE .
I think all contributors specially european ones that have higher fees with Payoneer should write to the stock agencies to implement cheaper options like these Revolut or Wise
Ig is outragous to pay 5% to just retrieve the money to your bank acount( 3%+ exchange fees)

19
I will look into that. I receive most of my funds in Dollars, and then I retrieved them to my European account. So I was already charged a currency exchange fee by Payoneer. Now this will be add to the new 3% fee. A dollar account could work but if Paypal does not charge anything (apart from the currency exchange fee) to retrieve to my bank account this could be a much better option I think.

I also keep hearing about Revolut. I wonder if the main stock agencies will provide this option in the future?

i just went to their site and their fees are so much better than Paypal, Skrill or Payoneer.

Correct me if I'm wrong but you should be able to set up a USD account in your own bank and transfer to your own bank with no conversion that doesn't incur the 3% transactional fee.

As per the email it states is only on USD to EUR transfers

Hope what I'm saying is right and that it helps

20
I have been working with Payoneer for more than a decade . From March 1 it seems all transaction to withdraw to a european bank will suffer a 3% transaction fee + the conversion fee. This will become an expensive proposition.
I think I might be changing all my payments to paypal to avoid this fee. So far I have seen no fee to withdraw to a linked account in Paypal.

Are some of you european contributors that were working with Payoneer facing the same dilema?


21
Yes it is

22
These day in video I contribute to P5 exclusive , P5 non exclusive, Adobe Stock and Artgrid.



Not for me. I have ditched a long time ago Istock, Shutterstock and Videohive Envato
What stock do you have left?  ???

23
Not for me. I have ditched a long time ago Istock, Shutterstock and Videohive Envato. Not worth my time. I had thousands of clips there. Not a single one in Istock or SS. Videohive I do not upload anything anymore.

My yearly income has been raising since I have started contributing video 5 years ago.

24
Off Topic / Re: I will never use AI
« on: November 26, 2023, 06:59 »
AI is garbage from a creative point of view the same way 99.99% of photos on micros are . Uninspiring work that will never be considered as a piece of art. But as commodities they work and we will be see it more and more everyday.

In any case AI will kill all microstock snapshots and substitute it sooner than later. And soon no human prompts by suppliers will be needed . The same AI that powers these sites will know how to fill their databases with what is needed and asked for by clients.  The clock is ticking fast . Qe are really arount the corner of that reality.

25
Truly disgusting......

Whats next jews gas chambers recreation with explicit fake images, hutu and tutsi fake images....

This has to stop and I hope that companies that accept this kind of content get hit hard or by laws or by boycott

Truly disgusting....

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