they have changed their policy for deleting images, when they announced a 100 image limit for 90 days I knew they were safeguarding themseleves for communicating bad news

Great move Shutterstock!
Now I have no other choice, I will delete all my portfolio and start to upload to Yaymicro and Cutcaster!

Quote from: Pauws99 on January 26, 2016, 06:01

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on January 26, 2016, 04:52

Quote from: Pauws99 on January 25, 2016, 16:00

Quote from: Microstockphoto on January 25, 2016, 15:56

no one said or insinuated that

Well Shutterstock and other sites seem to think so?

Surely it's not about being old-timers, it's about having a track record of producing stuff people want to buy. One person might have 100 images sitting there from 2004 and still be on the bottom earnings tier while another who started uploading six months ago could already have reached the top tier if he or she is really, really good.

Thanks I can see the Logic of that as a kind of incentive for producing marketable work but does create a perverse logic that it is in the interests of the supplier to encourage customers to go to lower tier supplier's  images.

Their interrest is to keep the customers happy by presenting them the best photos available.
If they start playing games, as you suggest, customers will notice and leave, going to agencies with better search algorithms, able to offer a better product.
Their foremost incentive is to keep their customers loyal and happy.

Sent from my SM-N910T using Tapatalk

Actually I thnk you are right up to a point though many customers don't  want the best they want something fit for purpose so if two pictures meet that need then it may be that the supplier would want to promote the most profitable to them whether they are sophisticated enough to do this I'm not sure.

Cats are quite intelligent but I think you have as much chance of herding them as getting this to fly.......sad but true I think

Quote from: Zero Talent on January 26, 2016, 06:11

Their interest is to keep the customers happy by presenting them the best photos available.
If they start playing games, as you suggest, customers will notice and leave, going to agencies with better search algorithms, able to offer a better product.
Their foremost incentive is to keep their customers loyal and happy.

Sent from my SM-N910T using Tapatalk

Actually I thnk you are right up to a point though many customers don't  want the best they want something fit for purpose so if two pictures meet that need then it may be that the supplier would want to promote the most profitable to them whether they are sophisticated enough to do this I'm not sure.

The search algorithm is one of the most important differentiators in this competition. And its primary goal is to make the best photos float above an ocean of garbage. Fit for purpose is mandatory, of course, but there is always a hierarchy of photos, once fit for purpose is satisfied. Customers would always look for the best photos fitting their purpose.

I believe a company like SS is smart enough to realise that if they stop offering customers their best, they set themselves on a slippery slope. It is easy to imagine a competitor, let's say FT, going after SS customers and running comparative search tests. FT could easily convince SS customers to switch, if they can prove that SS is tricking them, for the sake of an easy profit, with underpar photos made by first tier contributors (and I'm not saying that beginners make underpar photos)

Personally, long after I reached the top tier, I have yet to see a decline. On the contrary, I see growth year over year. But again, I'm also aware that "una hirundo non facit ver"

If I would be SS, I would offer an easy way to make the believers in this "theory" happy: if you believe that your sales are affected by a promotion, you should be allowed refuse the promotion! Make the promotion optional. Maybe you can even ask SS, right now, to demote you to the first tier!  But, I'm rather certain that you will see a massive drop in your revenue, and no change in your sales numbers.

We are an intelligent bunch of people, it would not take much to setup a dedicated independent central body we all subscribe to that looks after our rights and acts as a central go between, between contributors and resellers.

Microstockgroup is half way there is terms of popular and independent.

Another poll, would you pay $10 a year to subscribe to a independent agency that looks after the rights on microstock contributors?

10k people join = $100,000 revenue to run it. Its pretty simple stuff.
100k people join = �1m a year to run it
that's 100k people with one voice, that's powerful.

This idea has been thought of many times before and nothing has ever happened.  Unfortunately, we aren't as intelligent as you think.  It would probably be easier to start our own site or buy a majority share in one of the current ones than start a central body that would probably have no teeth but that hasn't happened either.

This option available to everyone:

We are an intelligent bunch of people, it would not take much to setup a dedicated independent central body we all subscribe to that looks after our rights and acts as a central go between, between contributors and resellers.
...

This topic has come up before.

The issue isn't setting up the organization but getting a disparate group of people to act in concert to balance out the power the agencies wield. You can't force people to act in unison just because they paid dues.

In addition to the issue of getting a majority to participate in action (and there have been some cases where we've been able to effect change with agencies, but you'd be surprised how hard it is to get people to act, especially those who are successful, do this full time and have a family to feed), you have the ability of the agencies to terminate a contributor's contract at any time for any or no reason. Recall Getty "firing" Sean Locke and Rob Sylvan to warn other contributors? Remember Fotolia terminating accounts of those who were participating in the DPC boycott?

The agencies will play hardball to maintain their power because that's how they make substantial profits. Getty had many deeply unhappy contributors when they made major changes in their contract (I think in 2011) and they just told photographers to leave if they didn't like the new terms, knowing that as long as they made photographers more than anywhere else, the bulk of them would hold their noses and put up with the garbage to keep making a living. And they did.

A better option for contributors than a union is a strong competitor to SS that behaves better (even if that is temporary until they too become top dog). There's some hope that Adobe might be that agency, but (a) it's still Fotolia under the hood and (b) Adobe's heart and primary focus really isn't in the stock licensing business - they're just doing this to try and strengthen their primary businesses.

Starting with an upload suspension is a much easier option than removing a portfolio. As it appears that older images with good search position are generally doing better anyway, it'd arguably be a pretty low-impact move for contributors while denying SS the  nice big number in their "added this week" number.

Today it's only "693,200 new stock images added this week" - a few days back it was in the 800K range. Perhaps set a goal of getting that down to 250K or less?

I think the comments about yay and Cutcaster were ironic ;-)

The search algorithm is one of the most important differentiators in this competition. And its primary goal is to make the best photos float above an ocean of garbage. Fit for purpose is mandatory, of course, but there is always a hierarchy of photos, once fit for purpose is satisfied. Customers would always look for the best photos fitting their purpose.

I believe a company like SS is smart enough to realise that if they stop offering customers their best, they set themselves on a slippery slope. It is easy to imagine a competitor, let's say FT, going after SS customers and running comparative search tests. FT could easily convince SS customers to switch, if they can prove that SS is tricking them, for the sake of an easy profit, with underpar photos made by first tier contributors (and I'm not saying that beginners make underpar photos)

Very well stated.

I think the announcement just means that SS wants to compete on price for ELs, and they couldn't do that and still pay us $28 across the board (and keep their profit percentage where they want it).  By paying the usual percentage they are at least being fair.  However, they should have just said that they are planning to reduce prices and we will get a smaller cut than in the past so too bad, rather than trying to say they are going to make up for lower commissions by increased volume - how many times have we heard that from agencies in the past and how often has it been true?  Tons of times stated and never once true as far as I can remember.

I got today $29.85 Enhanced sale.

Quote from: Pauws99 on January 26, 2016, 07:13

Quote from: Zero Talent on January 26, 2016, 06:11

Their interest is to keep the customers happy by presenting them the best photos available.
If they start playing games, as you suggest, customers will notice and leave, going to agencies with better search algorithms, able to offer a better product.
Their foremost incentive is to keep their customers loyal and happy.

Sent from my SM-N910T using Tapatalk

Actually I thnk you are right up to a point though many customers don't  want the best they want something fit for purpose so if two pictures meet that need then it may be that the supplier would want to promote the most profitable to them whether they are sophisticated enough to do this I'm not sure.

The search algorithm is one of the most important differentiators in this competition. And its primary goal is to make the best photos float above an ocean of garbage. Fit for purpose is mandatory, of course, but there is always a hierarchy of photos, once fit for purpose is satisfied. Customers would always look for the best photos fitting their purpose.

I believe a company like SS is smart enough to realise that if they stop offering customers their best, they set themselves on a slippery slope. It is easy to imagine a competitor, let's say FT, going after SS customers and running comparative search tests. FT could easily convince SS customers to switch, if they can prove that SS is tricking them, for the sake of an easy profit, with underpar photos made by first tier contributors (and I'm not saying that beginners make underpar photos)

Personally, long after I reached the top tier, I have yet to see a decline. On the contrary, I see growth year over year. But again, I'm also aware that "una hirundo non facit ver"

If I would be SS, I would offer an easy way to make the believers in this "theory" happy: if you believe that your sales are affected by a promotion, you should be allowed refuse the promotion! Make the promotion optional. Maybe you can even ask SS, right now, to demote you to the first tier!  But, I'm rather certain that you will see a massive drop in your revenue, and no change in your sales numbers.

I think older files are relegated to the lower rungs, if you have a newer port you will not be impacted much after reaching the top tier. I have watched many claim it is not impacting them only to see them come back and claim 30% drops when their files hit the threshold age. And SS can and does dynamically change that age. I see old files come to life for weeks at a time. They just do not stay there long no matter how good those files are or how much the customers like them.

Shutterstock is happy to sell good enough files at a lower price for increased profits in bursts. The one thing you can not do is keep your port from aging.

I got today $29.85 Enhanced sale.

That's completely impossible. Everyone knows that this new change has only one purpose, to screw contributors and help shareholders buy a new solid gold toilet.

Oh, wait, did you ever consider that you really "should be" getting $40.00 for that EL? I'll bet SS made a huge pile of money off of it. Besides all of the image hosting, sales, advertising, providing buyers with a place to consistently find a huge diversity of images, dealing with financial transactions what did they do to deserve to make ANY money off of your image? Practically criminal I say.