Author Topic: BigStock e-mail about subscriptions and an RC-like payment system (Read 59489 times)

gbalex · « **Reply #175 on:** February 10, 2013, 11:20 »

Quote from: Microbius on February 10, 2013, 06:23

Quote from: Travelling-light on February 09, 2013, 17:04

Quote
I hear you, it is pure unadulterated greed. How many millions are enough to fill the void of avaricious soul's willing to do anything to possess more than what they need or for that matter deserve?

Void is the right word. I've often wondered why they keep on.
It can only be because they can't think of anything else to do.

Unless it's a conspiracy by the rich to save the world If the poor have no money, they can't spend any, so won't use up the earth's scarce resources...

I am afraid it is the nature of the game once a company goes public.

They literally have to care about returns to the share holders above all other concerns. That is the only moral code a traded company has: maximize the return for the shareholder.

It is a flaw in the system, not to do with the ethics of any particular company.

The only solution would be for contributors to own most of the shares of an agency, then different priorities could come to the fore, but how long would that last? as soon as a company became successful some/most contributors would sell their shares.

The system sucks for building sustainable companies, great for asset strippers and and short term chancers.

Maybe my vision is jaded by life experience. I have personally known several owners who took their companies public and one who sold his billion plus revenue corp. to a very large public company. All of them were looking to cash out and they all knew full well what would eventually happen to their business and it's employees.

I don't think for a moment that someone with the capabilities to go public did not go into this with open eyes. Just look who they and their venture capitalist companions picked to be on their boards.

RacePhoto · « **Reply #176 on:** February 10, 2013, 15:19 »

Oh no, remember the new deal "a higher chance to earn higher royalties" you will have massive new downloads at 25 cents, and make it to $30 twice as fast. But remember that BS once changed the payout to $50, and recinded that later, they could do that again too. So you could be a forced labor member until 2015 or so.

For people who keep repeating how the money will go to the shareholders, profits must go up. Is there any chance that the largest single stock holder is none other than... (what's your guess?) Mine is Jon Oringer. If you got in at $17 a share, which was limited to inside traders only, wouldn't you be happy if the stock almost doubles in a year? I would!

In business terms "we have no plans for..." is often true but also a diversion. Same as "no immediate plans for..." We aren't planning that can mean, we are looking into it, investigating, but we have no active plans. It's a standard dodge for something that someone doesn't want to answer or discuss.

I'm still sticking to Wait and See. The new system hasn't even started yet. I don't know if it will work and make more or be a complete dud. But I'm "making no plans at this time..."

To leave BS in the foreseeable future.

Welcome To

Quote from: Mapics on February 08, 2013, 19:04

I asked them if I would leave immediately, would they pay me my 12$ earnings or if I'd have to wait until my earnings reach 30$ to get my money and close my account. This is the answer I got:

Quote
Hello,

We understand your concern.

One of the reasons behind this change is to provide our contributors with a higher chance to earn higher royalties. Subscriptions can allow more downloads, and higher total earnings, and you will still make the current amount from downloads made using credits.

We encourage you to stay, allowing the chance to see your earnings grow.

We cannot issue payouts beneath $30, if you close your account now you would be forfeiting those earnings.

Please let us know how you would like to proceed.

Kindest regards..

So now I have to wait for another year or so to collect the remaining 18$, then I can leave BS. But stopped uploading immediately

Poncke · « **Reply #177 on:** February 11, 2013, 15:14 »

Quote

As requested, all images previously uploaded to Bigstock have been deleted.
Best regards,
Bigtock

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #178 on:** February 11, 2013, 16:50 »

If we're going to do something to at least make our views heard loud and clear by Shutterstock - which is really what everyone's concerned about, I think - I thought having a fair trade symbol might help people publicize what's going on

I've put some draft fair trade logos on my blog - all opinions welcome

http://www.digitalbristles.com/we-need-fair-trade

I'm going to pull my BigStock portfolio on the Ides of March (March 15th) if we don't get an opt out from the new royalty scheme

crashoran · « **Reply #179 on:** February 12, 2013, 00:55 »

Account at bigstock has been removed

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #180 on:** February 12, 2013, 03:19 »

Here's my blog post about the Ides of March and pulling my portfolio if we don't get an opt out from subscriptions at BigStock

http://www.digitalbristles.com/beware-the-ides-of-march

I retain a small amount of hope that they can come to their senses in the next month and halt this train wreck.

Tweet for the blog post (in case anyone wants to pass it on)

https://twitter.com/joannsnover/status/301245212993400832

Pixart · « **Reply #181 on:** February 12, 2013, 16:46 »

I see sub sales are live today. Has anyone had any?

LOL, has anyone had any sales at all? They've been more deadsville over here than ever lately.

Wonder if we will still have to wait a week for sub sales to clear?

EmberMike · « **Reply #182 on:** February 12, 2013, 17:05 »

Holy hell. The subscription prices are crazy low.

$69 a month??

I had a feeling they'd undercut SS, but not by anywhere near this much.

Edit: Wait, I'm wrong, that's for 5 images per day.

A more comparable plan would be Bigstock's 30 image per day plan for $209.

Poncke · « **Reply #183 on:** February 12, 2013, 17:52 »

Quote from: EmberMike on February 12, 2013, 17:05

Holy hell. The subscription prices are crazy low.

$69 a month??

I had a feeling they'd undercut SS, but not by anywhere near this much.

Edit: Wait, I'm wrong, that's for 5 images per day.

A more comparable plan would be Bigstock's 30 image per day plan for $209.

I can only see euro prices, but it doesnt look good.

SS - 199 euro - 25 images / day - 750 images - 26.5 cent image
BS - 169 euro - 30 images / day - 900 images - 19 cent image

BS is undercutting SS by 7.5 cent per image... !!

Also funny, when I went to the BS site, a chat box popped up, asking me if they could help me find the right sub plan. When I replied I got a classic message back

Quote

Joey:
Hello and thank you for visiting. Can I help you find the right plan?
me: Im just checking by how much you are undercutting Shutterstock

Sorry for the delay. We're working on getting to you as quickly as possible. If you need to run, please feel free to leave us a message.

Thank you for contacting us.
Chat session disconnected.

LMFAO !!

klsbear · « **Reply #184 on:** February 12, 2013, 18:59 »

Quote from: Poncke on February 12, 2013, 17:52

Quote from: EmberMike on February 12, 2013, 17:05
Holy hell. The subscription prices are crazy low.

$69 a month??

I had a feeling they'd undercut SS, but not by anywhere near this much.

Edit: Wait, I'm wrong, that's for 5 images per day.

A more comparable plan would be Bigstock's 30 image per day plan for $209.

I can only see euro prices, but it doesnt look good.

SS - 199 euro - 25 images / day - 750 images - 26.5 cent image
BS - 169 euro - 30 images / day - 900 images - 19 cent image

BS is undercutting SS by 7.5 cent per image... !!

Also funny, when I went to the BS site, a chat box popped up, asking me if they could help me find the right sub plan. When I replied I got a classic message back

Quote
Joey:
Hello and thank you for visiting. Can I help you find the right plan?
me: Im just checking by how much you are undercutting Shutterstock

Sorry for the delay. We're working on getting to you as quickly as possible. If you need to run, please feel free to leave us a message.

Thank you for contacting us.
Chat session disconnected.
LMFAO !!

You just disconnected too fast. I think that Joey is multi-tasking on several chats.

I asked basically the same thing saying I wanted to compare prices between the two sites and got the same message, then a minute later he asked if there was anything he could do to help with that. I said no, unless he had a spreadsheet comparing the prices that he could send me. The response was "Sadly, we don not have anything such as that."

I suspect that has been the conversation of most of the chats today.

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #185 on:** February 12, 2013, 19:17 »

So if you buy a one-month subscription at BigStock, 30 images a day, it's $209. If you buy a one month at SS, 25 a day, it's $249. If you did an extrapolation from the 25 a day at SS to BigStock prices you'd have $174 a month

If you're in the Bridge to Bigstock program, why would you want to ship off your images to sell for less at a sister site? Where after the 6 months are up you'll get less per download?

It seems even more targeted at shifting business away from SS subscriptions than when we saw only the royalty charts.

My two sales there today were credits, not subs, but perhaps it's going to take a while to ramp up.

Thinkstock charges $299 a month for 25 a day ; Dreamstime is $239.99 for 25 a day and 123rf charges $230 for 26 a day.

Why is SS trying to undercut prices this way? Do they really think they can steal business from the other sites but not from Shutterstock's main site?

tickstock · « **Reply #186 on:** February 12, 2013, 19:21 »

EmberMike · « **Reply #187 on:** February 12, 2013, 23:36 »

Quote from: tickstock on February 12, 2013, 19:21

Looks like a race to the bottom, cut prices and royalties...and Shutterstock is next. Well maybe they don't have to cut anything at Shutterstock if they just shift business to Bigstock...

No way they're going to deliberately shift things over to Bigstock. Shutterstock is the big gun, the public company, the top microstock site. They won't throw that away.

But you got me thinking... maybe they don't have to cut anything and they can just bring the Bigstock subscription model over to SS. We've talked about the possibility of bringing the tiered royalty rates over. But what about the subscription tiers? I don't think anyone expected that many options for the buyers. I certainly didn't.

Tiered subscription packages based on number of images allowed per day takes a significant part of the equation out of why SS is so successful for contributors. We count on a large number of DLs that don't ever get used by the buyer. Buyers have an allotment of 25 images per day that they can get under a subscription. So they're inclined to grab a few extra images they might not even need, or grab some similars.

Under the Bigstock system, you can choose a number of images per day that more closely aligns with what you think you'll need. This will reduce the number of extra images a buyer might take just because they have the added allotment.

Last year when I was doing a lot more freelance design work, I was an occasional SS subscriber. Some months I needed a ton of images, so I'd buy a subscription. And I downloaded probably more than twice as many images as I ended up using. The subscriptions were still a good deal. If I downloaded 10 images per day I wasn't using half of my allotment but I was still getting images for around a buck a piece.

But if I knew I could get 10 images a day and save $150 just by switching to Bigstock, I might be inclined to do exactly that.

I just don't get what the endgame is here, though. For Bigstock, this is driving new business their way through some very competitive subscription offerings. But what can SS gain here? They make a lot of money selling 25-a-day subscriptions, counting on people like me not using their allotment. They can't gain anything by giving the buyers more choices. Only the buyers benefit from that. Lack of choice is integral to the success of the SS subscription model.

All I can imagine is that they're thinking maybe they'll save money by not having to pay out as much to us through a lower volume of sales and lower royalties, while still remaining profitable through increased volume of subscription sales at lower prices. But I don't know how that would actually work out.

Maybe that's the point. They don't know if this can work, so they're testing it at Bigstock first.

tickstock · « **Reply #188 on:** February 12, 2013, 23:57 »

BaldricksTrousers · « **Reply #189 on:** February 13, 2013, 00:20 »

I don't see how getting $69 a month from someone who buys and uses all 150 images (with BS paying at least $38 in commissions) could possibly be better than someone paying $250, using maybe 150 they want and 150 they don't and SS paying out 300x a maximum 38c = $104 in commissions. Isn't a residue of $146 bigger than a residue of $31, or has microstock now reinvented the value of money, too?

Poncke · « **Reply #190 on:** February 13, 2013, 01:21 »

Quote from: klsbear on February 12, 2013, 18:59

Quote from: Poncke on February 12, 2013, 17:52
Quote from: EmberMike on February 12, 2013, 17:05
Holy hell. The subscription prices are crazy low.

$69 a month??

I had a feeling they'd undercut SS, but not by anywhere near this much.

Edit: Wait, I'm wrong, that's for 5 images per day.

A more comparable plan would be Bigstock's 30 image per day plan for $209.

I can only see euro prices, but it doesnt look good.

SS - 199 euro - 25 images / day - 750 images - 26.5 cent image
BS - 169 euro - 30 images / day - 900 images - 19 cent image

BS is undercutting SS by 7.5 cent per image... !!

Also funny, when I went to the BS site, a chat box popped up, asking me if they could help me find the right sub plan. When I replied I got a classic message back

Quote
Joey:
Hello and thank you for visiting. Can I help you find the right plan?
me: Im just checking by how much you are undercutting Shutterstock

Sorry for the delay. We're working on getting to you as quickly as possible. If you need to run, please feel free to leave us a message.

Thank you for contacting us.
Chat session disconnected.
LMFAO !!

You just disconnected too fast. I think that Joey is multi-tasking on several chats.

I asked basically the same thing saying I wanted to compare prices between the two sites and got the same message, then a minute later he asked if there was anything he could do to help with that. I said no, unless he had a spreadsheet comparing the prices that he could send me. The response was "Sadly, we don not have anything such as that."

I suspect that has been the conversation of most of the chats today.

I didnt disconnect at all, they disconnected me.

brm1949 · « **Reply #191 on:** February 13, 2013, 08:46 »

Made a sale today called a Partner Basic Sale for .89 That's a new one for me, most of my sales were 1.00, 2.00
standard sales.

fotografer · « **Reply #192 on:** February 13, 2013, 09:59 »

No subs but a 25$ EL.

BaldricksTrousers · « **Reply #193 on:** February 13, 2013, 10:31 »

Quote from: fotografer on February 13, 2013, 09:59

No subs but a 25$ EL.

That's a rare beast, indeed.

fotografer · « **Reply #194 on:** February 13, 2013, 10:40 »

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on February 13, 2013, 10:31

Quote from: fotografer on February 13, 2013, 09:59
No subs but a 25$ EL.
That's a rare beast, indeed.

Sure is

dbvirago · « **Reply #195 on:** February 13, 2013, 16:50 »

Just got my first .27 sale at BS. I thought it was going to be .38, but then I remembered I'm about 54,000 sales short

Pixart · « **Reply #196 on:** February 13, 2013, 16:51 »

Don't worry, you'll get there soon. I hear they have a terrific marketing plan.

suemack · « **Reply #197 on:** February 14, 2013, 04:59 »

Replied to the answer from support telling me there was no Opt Out, asked them to remove my files.

BaldricksTrousers · « **Reply #198 on:** February 14, 2013, 05:24 »

Quote from: Pixart on February 13, 2013, 16:51

Don't worry, you'll get there soon. I hear they have a terrific marketing plan.

I have actually seen a bigstock advert banner - images for as little as 17c, it said, or something similar (I might have got the number wrong but it was peanuts).

cthoman · « **Reply #199 on:** February 14, 2013, 17:43 »

I got my first sub sale today too. It's impressive and disturbing how quickly they sold these sub packages.

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Author Topic: BigStock e-mail about subscriptions and an RC-like payment system (Read 59489 times)

gbalex

RacePhoto

Poncke

Jo Ann Snover

crashoran

Jo Ann Snover

Pixart

EmberMike

Poncke

klsbear

Jo Ann Snover

tickstock

EmberMike

tickstock

BaldricksTrousers

Poncke

brm1949

fotografer

BaldricksTrousers

fotografer

dbvirago

Pixart

suemack

BaldricksTrousers

cthoman

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