oh another blast from the past (no pun intended)
oh I once was so young
oh I once was so incredible young

Thanks for posting this.  They sure didn't give us much warning, did they?  Funnily enough, I barely made that $5 minimum.  I got my first sale there 9 years ago, and my last sale 6� years ago.  At least they're paying what they owe; not everybody is that conscientious.

I thought they closed years ago.

Wow, so what's that, 2 agencies (plus all the Masterfile subsidiaries) closing up shop this month?

Sure shows us that the market is really down. The places that offer all the same files, from all the same people, and market as "we are selling for less", are finally seeing the end of the ride.

We're seeing which places have won the race to the bottom? 

For the record 4 votes, average = 0 at this point.

I think it is a real sign of an ethical person to allow us to ask for any remaining balance before it finally closes. I had about $9 over there - so thanks John for this. After losing $80 or so with Crestock (yes, my own fault for never going to the site), it is refreshing to see a different approach.

Steve

That's true and the short noticed probably means Cutcaster, was losing money and with the Virus, less income, losing money faster, the time to cut losses was forced on them. If the business is losing money, and the future is showing like the entire Microstock market for the small agencies, why throw away more money, just hanging on.

Instead of going hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt and then going bankrupt, stiffing everyone, Cutcaster is trying to give buyers and artists a chance to recover some of their money. Sounds like he's trying to do the best he can to do the right thing.

FeaturePics, GL and YAY next?

FeaturePics, GL and YAY next?

Featurepics seems to be managed smart and small, has been around a long time that way. Early entry into Microstock, but after that I don't know.

GL Stock is up for sale, has been for many months. Was $5,000 no bids, renewed the auction, no bids. Last I looked he lists it as making negative numbers a month and is now asking $15,000 opening bid.  Looks like the current owner bought the GraphicLeftovers site as an investment, made improvements, and now has other things he'd be working on more, that are much more profitable. If I had the money, I'd buy it. All I need to do is win the lottery?  In other words, the only way to own a site would be not need the income coming from that.

Yay I never followed close, so maybe people who sell there have some opinion. That was a pretty new entry, late into the market. Seems to be another smaller staff operation, which means they run lean and can handle the downturn, better than places that were once larger and have dropped much worse. Now I see, they did a virtual close, didn't pay people and are under new ownership. I changed my opinion to "I'm staying away from this one".

Too many agencies jumped in, after the market was past the major growth stages. If we have observed right, everything peaked sometime in 2012? Unless I'm just seeing SS and IS as example and the smaller ones held on longer. The first major sign that the boom was over was "Unsustainable" from iStock, cutting commissions, and then pretty much every agency followed by dropping referrals or putting time limits on them.

What I mean is, I wouldn't be surprised if a bunch more of the small agencies decided to cut the losses and close down. A business can only stay open losing money for so long, before the writing is on the wall, that there will never be a recovery.

Odd that I got this in the morning email.

"You're receiving this email because you had at some point signed up to be a yaymicro/yayimages contributor. However, because you have not uploaded any files and/or had no earnings in this account, we will be looking to schedule old and inactive accounts for deletion."

I wrote and thanked them for being nice and telling me, instead of just discovering that some day. I mean, not that it's important, but they are polite and up front, which is appreciated. Yes I have a totally inactive account that I probably would have never used.

Oh I was really out of touch. New owners? Good luck, I think it's too late to save that place. Good Luck

Has anybody received the final payout?

Nope.  Payments came in from all the other agencies though (but still waiting to see if Crestock is going to pay anything from their bankruptcy).

Quote from: steheap on April 21, 2020, 16:53

I think it is a real sign of an ethical person to allow us to ask for any remaining balance before it finally closes. I had about $9 over there - so thanks John for this. After losing $80 or so with Crestock (yes, my own fault for never going to the site), it is refreshing to see a different approach.

Steve

Would have been even more ethical to send a notification to contributors. I guess it's too late for me. Yes I know, it's my fault that I did not check so often.

According to the posts before yours, it seems like final payments haven't been made. It's been a month. I didn't receive my balance when I dropped them years back.