Who benefits? iStockphoto. For them StockXpert became self-competition. Anyway, it's their business, what is the most important thing, regardless of the fact that StockXpert is gone, the same amount of stock photos are sold every day in the world. Those buyers who were @ StockXpert, they are dissolved between the remaining top agencies. It's normal, somebody will not stop buying images because an agency closes. The key is to be present at many agencies (as photographer) so you won't feel the hole.
1) i suppose IS exclusives will benefit , or at least you would think that Getty has their self interest in mind.
self interest being Getty or the IS exclusives? that's hard to figure.
2) from general consensus, it seems that sales are down for most ppl, at least with BigStock.
FT, Canstock, were slow anyway, so a snail is still a snail.lol.
but Dreamstime is definitely going blazing guns... at least in my own case.
3) i hung around for StockXpert as they were good to me from the start. but all this switcheroonie loonie toonie
is confusing to my old mind, so i asked StockXpert to pay out and kill my port.
sad for them as you know here,
i was cheering for a StockXpert resurrection. but Easter did not arrive for me with StockXpert. "god" *read that as *getty
would not allow it
4) your last point. i am not sure if i concur. i belong to about 10 sites , but only 2 or 3 sites really sold anything.
the rest were just taking in my images for numbers sake. not worth the trouble anymore.
i decided this year to cut their hands off and keep only 3. if i don't reach payout to anyone soon,
i will cut that hand off for the others too.
better to stay with the one that is selling for me . this way, i conserve waste energy to have to upload to those dead in the water , and use that energy to making more new works for the one that sells regular for me.
of course, you're entitled to disagree. it's nice to see so many reviewers approving your work.
but nowadays, i don't give a rat's arse to approvals. i only see what sells for me.