MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => Adobe Stock => Topic started by: MatHayward on August 08, 2021, 12:09
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Hi everyone,
I want to inform you that the second wave of approvals for the Adobe Stock Free collection will be taking place sometime in the next couple of days (likely August 9 or 10). For those of you that nominated eligible images before June 23 and have some that remain nominated, they may be selected this week in this 2nd wave of approvals.
As before, for each image selected this round, Adobe Stock will be adding $5 (if traditionally paid in USD, otherwise 5 credits in your currency) to your account balance. I recommend you take note of how many images you have currently approved for the free collection using the "filter by price tier" button in the dashboard. After this next wave of approvals, check the number of approved files again to determine how many images were approved this round. We will be sending you an email later in the week with the exact number of images approved and the amount added to your account so be sure to watch for that.
If we determine that increasing collection size is still achieving our goals, it's likely some contributors with nominated images, will see additional content acquisition happen through the end of September.
You can review the FAQ here for additional information: https://helpx.adobe.com/stock/contributor/help/free-collection-contributor-information.html
Thank you,
Mat Hayward
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Thank you Mat!
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Folk,
please publish here, when you got your first upfront sales from the second wave.
Last time no image was selected from mine, so I just want to know, if I still can hope or not.
Oh, yes: Best for me to know, if you goth that sales via Wirestock, which MIGHT take little bit longer (in case of so many and different artists) until Wirestock is ready to inform us?
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Folk,
please publish here, when you got your first upfront sales from the second wave.
Last time no image was selected from mine, so I just want to know, if I still can hope or not.
Oh, yes: Best for me to know, if you goth that sales via Wirestock, which MIGHT take little bit longer (in case of so many and different artists) until Wirestock is ready to inform us?
Is Wirestock definitely included in this then?
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if i have received something in the first wave, i will also get something in the second wave?
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Folk,
please publish here, when you got your first upfront sales from the second wave.
Last time no image was selected from mine, so I just want to know, if I still can hope or not.
Oh, yes: Best for me to know, if you goth that sales via Wirestock, which MIGHT take little bit longer (in case of so many and different artists) until Wirestock is ready to inform us?
Is Wirestock definitely included in this then?
Seems like that.
I asked wirestock after the first wave and they checked it for me: No sales to Adobe for me. All others in that similar time were instant pay for me from shutterstock.
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if i have received something in the first wave, i will also get something in the second wave?
Yes and No: Both is possible. I hope for you!
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I received word this morning that payments may not happen until tomorrow (Wednesday). There are a lot of moving parts with this process so your patience is greatly appreciated.
Thank you,
Mat Hayward
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I received word this morning that payments may not happen until tomorrow (Wednesday). There are a lot of moving parts with this process so your patience is greatly appreciated.
Thank you,
Mat Hayward
It's Ok Mat, I understand... the massive wagon required for my payout can't be easy to get a hold of 😂😉
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One can dream 😜
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Duplicate
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I received word this morning that payments may not happen until tomorrow (Wednesday). There are a lot of moving parts with this process so your patience is greatly appreciated.
Thank you,
Mat Hayward
Thank you Mat for always showing respect for the contributors by communicating with us.
Far more than some companies do (mentioning no names) ... ;)
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Folk,
please publish here, when you got your first upfront sales from the second wave.
Last time no image was selected from mine, so I just want to know, if I still can hope or not.
Oh, yes: Best for me to know, if you goth that sales via Wirestock, which MIGHT take little bit longer (in case of so many and different artists) until Wirestock is ready to inform us?
Is Wirestock definitely included in this then?
Seems like that.
I asked wirestock after the first wave and they checked it for me: No sales to Adobe for me. All others in that similar time were instant pay for me from shutterstock.
Thank you.
Good to know.
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I received word this morning that payments may not happen until tomorrow (Wednesday). There are a lot of moving parts with this process so your patience is greatly appreciated.
Thank you,
Mat Hayward
Thank you Mat for always showing respect for the contributors by communicating with us.
Far more than some companies do (mentioning no names) ... ;)
Totally agree. The others treat us like mushrooms - kept in the dark and fed bullsh*t :)
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The images are starting to be selected as I type but no $$ yet- I assume they will continue with the process until tomorrow morning.
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The images are starting to be selected as I type but no $$ yet- I assume they will continue with the process until tomorrow morning.
Yep, I see that. Thanks. Hope it's a lot more than that though.
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Matt. Oscar here. I'm starting to see images from the second wave. Is that the end or will there be a 3rd wave also. Thanks so much for all your help communicating---Oscar
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Received the € extra right now, 70 new pics selected.
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$$$ have been paid now thus I assume the 2nd wave is over now...
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I’ve been informed payments are now complete for this wave. I’ll keep you posted as additional waves happen.
Thank you,
Mat
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That was a very large second wave - total in the free section is 574,566 items, 529,156 of which are photos
July 16th, the total was just over 319k
Most of the other asset types stayed nearly the same as in July.
The quality is excellent - putting a Customer hat on I wouldn't see anything different from the main collection.
At the beginning, the stated approach was breadth, not depth, but with such a large free collection, the depth has noticeably increased (based on some test searches I did)
I hesitate to ask, because today's answer might be different in the future, but is there any notion of a maximum size of this collection?
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Folk,
please publish here, when you got your first upfront sales from the second wave.
I just had another 10 accepted on top of the 20 in the first round. Total of 30 for $150.
After checking out the ones they took in both rounds, I'm fine with their decision and mine too.
ETA: I have no idea if there's a connection here or not, but since my first-round images were accepted I've had a lot of first-time sales of other images. Mostly wild bird shots. Sure would be fun to know there's a cause-and-effect between the freebies and the newly discovered pics, but I have no way of knowing.
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The images are starting to be selected as I type but no $$ yet- I assume they will continue with the process until tomorrow morning.
Yep, I see that. Thanks. Hope it's a lot more than that though.
Less than the first round :(
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Same number of files as the first time, 17, total 34.
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17 first round, 33 second round ...
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Good news Matt Thanks :)
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10 this time, up from 5, out 200 or so nominated.
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That was a very large second wave - total in the free section is 574,566 items, 529,156 of which are photos
July 16th, the total was just over 319k
Most of the other asset types stayed nearly the same as in July.
The quality is excellent - putting a Customer hat on I wouldn't see anything different from the main collection.
At the beginning, the stated approach was breadth, not depth, but with such a large free collection, the depth has noticeably increased (based on some test searches I did)
I hesitate to ask, because today's answer might be different in the future, but is there any notion of a maximum size of this collection?
All for $5
Not career building for sure, but great for corporate profit.
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Any via Wirestock already?
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There is no wirestock
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Mediocre photos now have a new chance. I think this is a good offer. Thanks Mat & Adobe! :)
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Nothing in the first wave and 4 in the second wave. $20 gain.
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All good, I got $$$ and I'm satisfied. Thank you Adobe!
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Any news about Vectors ? not yet ?
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44 first wave, 80 second wave, I feels quite happy about that
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I had 39 the first time and 55 the second time so I am happy for those numbers :)
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20 first time 62 this time
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omg.. too many, killing the regular sales for sure. first i thought it is a good idea, now it`s horrible..
... That was a very large second wave - total in the free section is 574,566 items, 529,156 of which are photos
July 16th, the total was just over 319k
Most of the other asset types stayed nearly the same as in July.
The quality is excellent - putting a Customer hat on I wouldn't see anything different from the main collection.
At the beginning, the stated approach was breadth, not depth, but with such a large free collection, the depth has noticeably increased (based on some test searches I did)
I hesitate to ask, because today's answer might be different in the future, but is there any notion of a maximum size of this collection?
All for $5
Not career building for sure, but great for corporate profit.
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Data to prove it is killing your sales?
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Data to prove it is killing your sales?
I have not seen any sign that it's killing my sales. I actually think they're up since my first free "nominees" were accepted.
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Data to prove it is killing your sales?
I have not seen any sign that it's killing my sales. I actually think they're up since my first free "nominees" were accepted.
same here. Most of my selected free images were fading away anyway thus didn't hurt my new sales.
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to prove what will happen in the near future? no, how could i?
Data to prove it is killing your sales?
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to prove what will happen in the near future? no, how could i?
Data to prove it is killing your sales?
without factual data there is no proof. Selling off our non selling images for 12 months should not kill our sales. If the selected image was sold permanently than maybe and that's a maybe at best. I've sold images on Dreamstime, some of my best sellers, for $500 accepting the risk of future income on that particular image.
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without factual data there is no proof.
That's if you only want to rely on empirical data, without trying to understand the medium/long-term logical consequences of these actions. We can safely predict that the night follows day, without having to wait for the dark. ;)
Such a large collection of good quality free assets is rather likely to deter buyers from buying more stuff, instead of stimulating them to buy more.
That's because nothing beats free, especially when the quality is sufficient for the purpose.
So when your work is offered for free, even if you got your precious $5, you will kill potential sales not necessarily from you, but rather from your fellow contributors who are competing in the same category.
In return, their free stuff will kill your sales in other categories, very likely beyond your precious $5.
The bigger this collection becomes, the bigger the losses will be for the contributor's community.
Too bad that many of us are wearing horse blinders, seeing only a narrow and individual short-term interest, instead of seeing how fast we are cutting the branch we all are sitting on!
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without factual data there is no proof.
That's if you only want to rely on empirical data, without trying to understand the medium/long-term logical consequences of these actions. We can safely predict that the night follows day, without having to wait for the dark. ;)
Such a large collection of good quality free assets is rather likely to deter buyers from buying more stuff, instead of stimulating them to buy more.
That's because nothing beats free, especially when the quality is sufficient for the purpose.
So when your work is offered for free, even if you got your precious $5, you will kill potential sales not necessarily from you, but rather from your fellow contributors who are competing in the same category.
In return, their free stuff will kill your sales in other categories, very likely beyond your precious $5.
The bigger this collection becomes, the bigger the losses will be for the contributor's community.
Too bad that many of us are wearing horse blinders, seeing only their narrow and individual short-term interest, instead of seeing how fast we are cutting the branch we all are sitting on!
okay, say you're right. Wouldn't this kill Adobe as well? For Adobe to do the second wave they must have seen their sales (not free) go up as well right?
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I agree 100% with Zero Talent. The free image collections will kill this industry in long term.
For Real, selling stock images is not the main source of income, they sell software.
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without factual data there is no proof.
That's if you only want to rely on empirical data, without trying to understand the medium/long-term logical consequences of these actions. We can safely predict that the night follows day, without having to wait for the dark. ;)
Such a large collection of good quality free assets is rather likely to deter buyers from buying more stuff, instead of stimulating them to buy more.
That's because nothing beats free, especially when the quality is sufficient for the purpose.
So when your work is offered for free, even if you got your precious $5, you will kill potential sales not necessarily from you, but rather from your fellow contributors who are competing in the same category.
In return, their free stuff will kill your sales in other categories, very likely beyond your precious $5.
The bigger this collection becomes, the bigger the losses will be for the contributor's community.
Too bad that many of us are wearing horse blinders, seeing only their narrow and individual short-term interest, instead of seeing how fast we are cutting the branch we all are sitting on!
okay, say you're right. Wouldn't this kill Adobe as well? For Adobe to do the second wave they must have seen their sales (not free) go up as well right?
Adobe is gambling with our (future) money. It's rather likely that they will also be losing money, indeed.
Rest assured that other sites will have no option left but to compete against Adobe, offering even more stuff for free, thus hurting Adobe, the same way we are hurting each other at the contributor's level (instead of competing fairly)
The vicious circle will continue, now that Pandora's box is open.
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without factual data there is no proof.
That's if you only want to rely on empirical data, without trying to understand the medium/long-term logical consequences of these actions. We can safely predict that the night follows day, without having to wait for the dark. ;)
Such a large collection of good quality free assets is rather likely to deter buyers from buying more stuff, instead of stimulating them to buy more.
That's because nothing beats free, especially when the quality is sufficient for the purpose.
So when your work is offered for free, even if you got your precious $5, you will kill potential sales not necessarily from you, but rather from your fellow contributors who are competing in the same category.
In return, their free stuff will kill your sales in other categories, very likely beyond your precious $5.
The bigger this collection becomes, the bigger the losses will be for the contributor's community.
Too bad that many of us are wearing horse blinders, seeing only their narrow and individual short-term interest, instead of seeing how fast we are cutting the branch we all are sitting on!
okay, say you're right. Wouldn't this kill Adobe as well? For Adobe to do the second wave they must have seen their sales (not free) go up as well right?
Adobe is gambling with our (future) money. It's rather likely that they will also be losing money, indeed.
Rest assured that other sites will have no option left but to compete against Adobe, offering even more stuff for free, thus hurting Adobe, the same way we are hurting each other at the contributor's level (instead of competing fairly)
The vicious circle will continue, now that Pandora's box is open.
Adobe is not gambling with your future at all. They are a corporation motivated by profit. However any small expendable minion that gives away work for next to nothing is guaranteeing their extinction. I am perplexed why so many are jumping for joy to give their work away for next to nothing to promote a corporation.
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I agree 100% with Zero Talent. The free image collections will kill this industry in long term.
For Real, selling stock images is not the main source of income, they sell software.
predicting a future event, as Zero does, is not the same as DECLARING it's killing sales - yet another solecism from Hellou in which someone else is blamed - to even make a case we'd need to know size of portfolio and how many sales over a year or more
and too many are confusing individual returns with the health of an industry - no evidence thus far that offering free images hurt the bottom line. offering something for free is a long established software tactic - from the days of shareware to winzip, pdf converters and much other software w option to upgrade. same here - AS is offering free images that are a tiny % of their total library.
for artists, getting $5 for an image that hasn't earned 1/4 that amount in the last year should be a no-brainer (and, of course) up to the individual to choose)
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..., the same way we are hurting each other at the contributor's level (instead of competing fairly)
how is it unfair when competitors all have the chance to opt in/out?
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Adobe is not gambling with your future at all. They are a corporation motivated by profit. However any small expendable minion that gives away work for next to nothing is guaranteeing their extinction. I am perplexed why so many are jumping for joy to give their work away for next to nothing to promote a corporation.
Yes, of course.
What I'm saying is that they hope to earn more than they have invested in these free photos and make a profit. This hope to win by betting that a new model will work, when it goes against common sense logic, can be called gambling.
And I say that our future earnings are gambled, because we give up better future earnigs against petty gains today.
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..., the same way we are hurting each other at the contributor's level (instead of competing fairly)
how is it unfair when competitors all have the chance to opt in/out?
This is equivalent to dumping.
My paid photos cannot compete aginst your free photos, even if mine are better, the same way your better photos stand no chance against my free stuff.
Fair competition would be to let our photos compete based on their merit, instead of nuking and obliterating each other's sales through dumping.
There are no winners in a nuclear war.
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I agree 100% with Zero Talent. The free image collections will kill this industry in long term.
For Real, selling stock images is not the main source of income, they sell software.
predicting a future event, as Zero does, is not the same as DECLARING it's killing sales - yet another solecism from Hellou in which someone else is blamed - to even make a case we'd need to know size of portfolio and how many sales over a year or more
and too many are confusing individual returns with the health of an industry - no evidence thus far that offering free images hurt the bottom line. offering something for free is a long established software tactic - from the days of shareware to winzip, pdf converters and much other software w option to upgrade. same here - AS is offering free images that are a tiny % of their total library.
for artists, getting $5 for an image that hasn't earned 1/4 that amount in the last year should be a no-brainer (and, of course) up to the individual to choose)
cascoly, I partly understand you. I just made a comparison of my portfolio on DT and your portfolio on DT. We both registered in 2006 and since then your Downloads per image = 0.30, mine Downloads per image = 8.21. You probably don't value your images as I value mine.
Some of my nominated images made me hundreds of dollars in the last 12 months on the other sites despite they are not selling well on Adobe. If they are offered for free I'm sure I will lose much more than $5.
Most of the free images will be downloaded tens of thousands of times and will appear everywhere, including in fake portfolios of thieves who will try to sell them on SS and wherever they can.
I also noticed images with hundreds of sales on Adobe alone among the nominated which just have less than 4 sales in the last year. They are not time sensitive, so if Adobe make some changes in the search algorithm there's a chance of lots of future sales. I will lose this opportunity if I accept the offer.
Plus I feel better when I know I'm not involved in devaluation of the stock images!
Lots of cons and just one pro - $5
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We can safely predict that the night follows day, without having to wait for the dark. ;)
Such a large collection of good quality free assets is rather likely to deter buyers from buying more stuff, instead of stimulating them to buy more.
That's because nothing beats free, especially when the quality is sufficient for the purpose.
So when your work is offered for free, even if you got your precious $5, you will kill potential sales not necessarily from you, but rather from your fellow contributors who are competing in the same category.
In return, their free stuff will kill your sales in other categories, very likely beyond your precious $5.
The bigger this collection becomes, the bigger the losses will be for the contributor's community.
Too bad that many of us are wearing horse blinders, seeing only a narrow and individual short-term interest, instead of seeing how fast we are cutting the branch we all are sitting on!
Absolutely. Very well said. I was also surprised how unwilling are many contributors to see what's going on, not just about free images, but other issues as well.
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We can safely predict that the night follows day, without having to wait for the dark. ;)
Such a large collection of good quality free assets is rather likely to deter buyers from buying more stuff, instead of stimulating them to buy more.
That's because nothing beats free, especially when the quality is sufficient for the purpose.
So when your work is offered for free, even if you got your precious $5, you will kill potential sales not necessarily from you, but rather from your fellow contributors who are competing in the same category.
In return, their free stuff will kill your sales in other categories, very likely beyond your precious $5.
The bigger this collection becomes, the bigger the losses will be for the contributor's community.
Too bad that many of us are wearing horse blinders, seeing only a narrow and individual short-term interest, instead of seeing how fast we are cutting the branch we all are sitting on!
Absolutely. Very well said. I was also surprised how unwilling are many contributors to see what's going on, not just about free images, but other issues as well.
Interested to hear the 'other issues' :)
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Absolutely. Very well said. I was also surprised how unwilling are many contributors to see what's going on, not just about free images, but other issues as well.
Interested to hear the 'other issues' :)
For me, big issue is selling our images on partner POD sites without telling us how much we actually earn per sale. Yes, I have read somewhere Mat's answer that we are getting 33% of amount that POD site paid to Adobe for each sale, but we don't know how much it is. So theoretically for 100$ worth sold product we could earn couple of cents. That was first reason why I started giving up.
And this too: https://www.microstockgroup.com/fotolia-com/adobe-stock-announcing-pro-edition-for-creative-cloud-for-teams-and-enterprises/ (https://www.microstockgroup.com/fotolia-com/adobe-stock-announcing-pro-edition-for-creative-cloud-for-teams-and-enterprises/) Now everytime I see custom download I am wondering was it Pro Team or Pro Enterprise license, so they can use my images for whatever they want for couple of cents or dollars.
Regional policy so many images are not visible in some countries and in other countries is still not possible to buy web subscription so they certainly won't buy AS images: https://www.microstockgroup.com/fotolia-com/is-there-a-proble-with-adobe-stock-website/. (https://www.microstockgroup.com/fotolia-com/is-there-a-proble-with-adobe-stock-website/.)
Invitation-only policy for premium images and templates, so regular contributors can't participate even if they are good enough.
I think I covered everything that bothers me, but many other contributors don't seem to care or at least they remain silent. If I remember something else, I will let you know. :)
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Absolutely. Very well said. I was also surprised how unwilling are many contributors to see what's going on, not just about free images, but other issues as well.
Interested to hear the 'other issues' :)
For me, big issue is selling our images on partner POD sites without telling us how much we actually earn per sale. Yes, I have read somewhere Mat's answer that we are getting 33% of amount that POD site paid to Adobe for each sale, but we don't know how much it is. So theoretically for 100$ worth sold product we could earn couple of cents. That was first reason why I started giving up.
And this too: https://www.microstockgroup.com/fotolia-com/adobe-stock-announcing-pro-edition-for-creative-cloud-for-teams-and-enterprises/ (https://www.microstockgroup.com/fotolia-com/adobe-stock-announcing-pro-edition-for-creative-cloud-for-teams-and-enterprises/) Now everytime I see custom download I am wondering was it Pro Team or Pro Enterprise license, so they can use my images for whatever they want for couple of cents or dollars.
Regional policy so many images are not visible in some countries and in other countries is still not possible to buy web subscription so they certainly won't buy AS images: https://www.microstockgroup.com/fotolia-com/is-there-a-proble-with-adobe-stock-website/. (https://www.microstockgroup.com/fotolia-com/is-there-a-proble-with-adobe-stock-website/.)
Invitation-only policy for premium images and templates, so regular contributors can't participate even if they are good enough.
I think I covered everything that bothers me, but many other contributors don't seem to care or at least they remain silent. If I remember something else, I will let you know. :)
Yeah, I've applied for the premium images on a few sites and they basically tell me I am lucky to just have a low end account :-[
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Absolutely. Very well said. I was also surprised how unwilling are many contributors to see what's going on, not just about free images, but other issues as well.
Interested to hear the 'other issues' :)
For me, big issue is selling our images on partner POD sites without telling us how much we actually earn per sale. Yes, I have read somewhere Mat's answer that we are getting 33% of amount that POD site paid to Adobe for each sale, but we don't know how much it is. So theoretically for 100$ worth sold product we could earn couple of cents. That was first reason why I started giving up.
And this too: https://www.microstockgroup.com/fotolia-com/adobe-stock-announcing-pro-edition-for-creative-cloud-for-teams-and-enterprises/ (https://www.microstockgroup.com/fotolia-com/adobe-stock-announcing-pro-edition-for-creative-cloud-for-teams-and-enterprises/) Now everytime I see custom download I am wondering was it Pro Team or Pro Enterprise license, so they can use my images for whatever they want for couple of cents or dollars.
Regional policy so many images are not visible in some countries and in other countries is still not possible to buy web subscription so they certainly won't buy AS images: https://www.microstockgroup.com/fotolia-com/is-there-a-proble-with-adobe-stock-website/. (https://www.microstockgroup.com/fotolia-com/is-there-a-proble-with-adobe-stock-website/.)
Invitation-only policy for premium images and templates, so regular contributors can't participate even if they are good enough.
I think I covered everything that bothers me, but many other contributors don't seem to care or at least they remain silent. If I remember something else, I will let you know. :)
In most cases an themes, we get directly answers from Mat. That´s what we like from him. so we do not feel treated bad from Adobe, because of Mat.
BUT: All issues mentioned from Lina, were already published and critisized from many different forum members here. But we did not get any - or only rethorical no means - answers, even from Mat.
I am pretty sure that adobe forced Mat, not to answer or only give that no means answers. I asked Adobe support directly too, but same not satisfying answers as well.
Their class systems by premium and featured artists and on the other side treated bad low end accounts, and that regional thing, which only discriminates these regions, mostly poor or Moslem regions, makes us feeling that Adobe is God and decides, who will be accepted in their previleged group and who will get send to hell.
Thank you Lina for your new try to force Adobe to clear the situation and give information about these cases. But do not expect them answering here. They will NOT. They hide themselves back doors like big Mafia bosses do/did.
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That's if you only want to rely on empirical data, without trying to understand the medium/long-term logical consequences of these actions. We can safely predict that the night follows day, without having to wait for the dark. ;)
Such a large collection of good quality free assets is rather likely to deter buyers from buying more stuff, instead of stimulating them to buy more.
That's because nothing beats free, especially when the quality is sufficient for the purpose.
So when your work is offered for free, even if you got your precious $5, you will kill potential sales not necessarily from you, but rather from your fellow contributors who are competing in the same category.
In return, their free stuff will kill your sales in other categories, very likely beyond your precious $5.
The bigger this collection becomes, the bigger the losses will be for the contributor's community.
Too bad that many of us are wearing horse blinders, seeing only a narrow and individual short-term interest, instead of seeing how fast we are cutting the branch we all are sitting on!
For the record: I think you are right with your analysis. Free collections will ultimately kill a big part of the industry as we have known it. We're not there yet, but definitely on our way. I'm the one who actually looks at photo credits in magazines or news outlets, and the amount of unsplash credits is still on the rise, also in so-called premium outlets. I think there's no profitable future in shooting well covered topics, apart from the lazy customers buying an image on subscription packages, as the amount of freely available "good enough" images is increasing day by day. Plenty of images in free collections outperform my images in terms of quality or creativity, and I'm not a complete noob, I do know how to take a decent picture.
But I also think there's nothing we can do about it. When Shutterstock slashed the contributor royalties more than a year ago, I felt like we had a momentum. Enough is enough. So I joined the protest, and disabled my portfolio for a few weeks. As many others did. I truly felt that we had reached a momentum, and had to stand up against an evil corporation that displayed an unfair amount of greed and shamelessly profited from contributors.
I think it's fair to say it was a mistake. The protest, despite being very vocal and from my point of view still justified, had no impact at all. Instead, we all lost money for the time we disabled our accounts, and those who pulled their portfolio, are still losing a fair amount of money each month. And looking back at it... well I just don't know. 2021 is my best year ever at Shutterstock, and I earned more in the first 7 months of 2021 than in the complete year of 2020 or 2019, while my portfolio grew with only a few percent in 2021. Both in earnings as in sales volume. At the same time I realize that my personal situation might be completely different from what others are experiencing. Plenty of examples of contributors who saw a decline in earnings due to the royalty changes.
The lesson for me personally is that... well... I don't know. I really don't know how strategic changes of stock agencies will impact my personal earnings. The only thing I do know is that we cannot change it. There will always be plenty of contributors willing to give away images for free, or almost free. And yes, I think this impacts the potential sales of others. But again: there's nothing we can do about it.
So I too nominated images for Adobe's free collection, and I was happy with the additional earnings because the pictures I nominated where not selling at any agency. No way (unless I got really lucky) those images would earn me more than 5$/image across the agencies over one year. I just take the money for as long as it lasts.
Microstock is a very cynical game, and if you feel very emotional about the content you create: well, then it's just not your jam and you'd better quit.
As a wise fellow contributor said recently: there is no single path to success. Plenty of other ways to make money from photography.
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Thank you Lina for your new try to force Adobe to clear the situation and give information about these cases. But do not expect them answering here. They will NOT. They hide themselves back doors like big Mafia bosses do/did.
I am not expecting anything anymore, I just summarized it because For Real asked me for other issues and I guess I needed to vent out my frustrations. I don't have time or energy anymore to search for answers, stolen images, stolen ideas etc. I am just sick and tired and disappointed because I really loved to work for microstock and now I feel forced to move on. That's all.
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cascoly, I partly understand you. I just made a comparison of my portfolio on DT and your portfolio on DT. We both registered in 2006 and since then your Downloads per image = 0.30, mine Downloads per image = 8.21. You probably don't value your images as I value mine.
i include links to my portfolios - why dont you?
since you don't have the courtesy to show a link to your portfolio we don't know your actual earnings.
DL/image is worthless as a metric anyway - more important is actual income - 1000 images @ $1 each is a better return than 100 images @$8 each
Some of my nominated images made me hundreds of dollars in the last 12 months on the other sites despite they are not selling well on Adobe. If they are offered for free I'm sure I will lose much more than $5.
you know this how? no evidence that free images on adobe will harm better sales on other agencies
Most of the free images will be downloaded tens of thousands of times and will appear everywhere, including in fake portfolios of thieves who will try to sell them on SS and wherever they can.
again, evidence?
I also noticed images with hundreds of sales on Adobe alone among the nominated which just have less than 4 sales in the last year. They are not time sensitive, so if Adobe make some changes in the search algorithm there's a chance of lots of future sales. I will lose this opportunity if I accept the offer.
always blame the agency when your images don't sell!
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Some of my nominated images made me hundreds of dollars in the last 12 months on the other sites despite they are not selling well on Adobe. If they are offered for free I'm sure I will lose much more than $5.
This may be too obvious but why would anyone nominate an image that earns hundreds of dollars on other sites. Don't do that.
always blame the agency when your images don't sell!
Of course, or blame how "they" changed the search algorithm. Never our images, or buyers needs or competition. ::)
Meanwhile when I get sales, I'm supposed to say it's because of the search and the agency and they did that, or because I did something right? Hmm, I get credit for the good and they get blamed for anything negative. OK, now I get it.
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Some of my nominated images made me hundreds of dollars in the last 12 months on the other sites despite they are not selling well on Adobe. If they are offered for free I'm sure I will lose much more than $5.
This may be too obvious but why would anyone nominate an image that earns hundreds of dollars on other sites. Don't do that.
Maybe I didn't make myself clear, by nominated I meant eligible for free collection images. I didn't nominated them and will never give them for free download.
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cascoly, I partly understand you. I just made a comparison of my portfolio on DT and your portfolio on DT. We both registered in 2006 and since then your Downloads per image = 0.30, mine Downloads per image = 8.21. You probably don't value your images as I value mine.
i include links to my portfolios - why dont you?
since you don't have the courtesy to show a link to your portfolio we don't know your actual earnings.
DL/image is worthless as a metric anyway - more important is actual income - 1000 images @ $1 each is a better return than 100 images @$8 each
Eight years ago I decided to stop using my original profile on MSG and to go anonymous. If you don't know why, ask all those punished contributors who were criticizing the agencies. That's the only reason I can't show my portfolio. And don't worry I'm not talking about hundreds of images they are thousands, now make the calculation again.
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I also noticed images with hundreds of sales on Adobe alone among the nominated which just have less than 4 sales in the last year. They are not time sensitive, so if Adobe make some changes in the search algorithm there's a chance of lots of future sales. I will lose this opportunity if I accept the offer.
always blame the agency when your images don't sell!
I don't blame the agency at all, actually Adobe is my best selling site and BTW not so long time ago I was one of the Recent top sellers of the week. I just gave an example about images with many sales in the past who are eligible for free collection.
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Some of my nominated images made me hundreds of dollars in the last 12 months on the other sites despite they are not selling well on Adobe. If they are offered for free I'm sure I will lose much more than $5.
This may be too obvious but why would anyone nominate an image that earns hundreds of dollars on other sites. Don't do that.
Maybe I didn't make myself clear, by nominated I meant eligible for free collection images. I didn't nominated them and will never give them for free download.
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cascoly, I partly understand you. I just made a comparison of my portfolio on DT and your portfolio on DT. We both registered in 2006 and since then your Downloads per image = 0.30, mine Downloads per image = 8.21. You probably don't value your images as I value mine.
i include links to my portfolios - why dont you?
since you don't have the courtesy to show a link to your portfolio we don't know your actual earnings.
DL/image is worthless as a metric anyway - more important is actual income - 1000 images @ $1 each is a better return than 100 images @$8 each
Eight years ago I decided to stop using my original profile on MSG and to go anonymous. If you don't know why, ask all those punished contributors who were criticizing the agencies. That's the only reason I can't show my portfolio. And don't worry I'm not talking about hundreds of images they are thousands, now make the calculation again.
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I also noticed images with hundreds of sales on Adobe alone among the nominated which just have less than 4 sales in the last year. They are not time sensitive, so if Adobe make some changes in the search algorithm there's a chance of lots of future sales. I will lose this opportunity if I accept the offer.
always blame the agency when your images don't sell!
I don't blame the agency at all, actually Adobe is my best selling site and BTW not so long time ago I was one of the Recent top sellers of the week. I just gave an example about images with many sales in the past who are eligible for free collection.
I agree with all you said.
That's why I also keep myself as anonymous as possible.
And I like Adobe. They are a strong second best for me.
I just believe that they made a mistake with this free collection.
A mistake that will not only impact our revenue, but theirs too.
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I also noticed images with hundreds of sales on Adobe alone among the nominated which just have less than 4 sales in the last year. They are not time sensitive, so if Adobe make some changes in the search algorithm there's a chance of lots of future sales. I will lose this opportunity if I accept the offer.
I don't blame the agency at all, actually Adobe is my best selling site and BTW not so long time ago I was one of the Recent top sellers of the week. I just gave an example about images with many sales in the past who are eligible for free collection.
hoist on your own petard! you blame your lack of sales (after 'hundreds' of sales) on AS search algorithm - you want us to believe that images that sold 'hundreds' suddenly can't make 4 in a year & it's AS' fault? maybe the images have just aged!
of course, w/o actually seeing the images you're claiming sell so well, there's no evidence for your claim
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cascoly, I partly understand you. I just made a comparison of my portfolio on DT and your portfolio on DT. We both registered in 2006 and since then your Downloads per image = 0.30, mine Downloads per image = 8.21. You probably don't value your images as I value mine.
i include links to my portfolios - why dont you?
since you don't have the courtesy to show a link to your portfolio we don't know your actual earnings.
DL/image is worthless as a metric anyway - more important is actual income - 1000 images @ $1 each is a better return than 100 images @$8 each
...I can't show my portfolio. And don't worry I'm not talking about hundreds of images they are thousands, now make the calculation again.
no need my calculation holds - your 'stats' are meaningless - businesses run on profits.
an average of 8 DL/image! if true, congrats, but forgive me if i'm skeptical; esp'ly with your thousands of images!
and please don't tell me how i value my images!
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Wow you give your image for free !!! For those not happy about shutterstock new price if you give image for 5 $ you are total idiot. You kill the market forevor!!! sale drop this month about that.
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Wow you give your image for free !!! For those not happy about shutterstock new price if you give image for 5 $ you are total idiot. You kill the market forevor!!! sale drop this month about that.
Yet it's okay for $.02 sales on company X and $.10 sales on company Y? I guess we are all idiots in your eyes. :-\
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Wow you give your image for free !!! For those not happy about shutterstock new price if you give image for 5 $ you are total idiot. You kill the market forevor!!! sale drop this month about that.
I find this a better deal as this $5 is upfront for 1 year term and moreover if you upload 10000 design then 90-95% content do not sell or perform well.
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Wow you give your image for free !!! For those not happy about shutterstock new price if you give image for 5 $ you are total idiot. You kill the market forevor!!! sale drop this month about that.
It's true that SS sales are way down. I didn't make the connection, because it's probably too soon for that. But it's not impossible to see some effects already.
Anyway, it's very likely that sales on other sites will also dry out, because of these good-quality free alternatives offered by AS.
Sooner than later similar free collections will pop up everywhere, hitting back hard at AS, and closing this vicious circle.
But hey... enjoy your precious $5, Carpe Diem, be a hero and keep playing in the Titanic orchestra as much as you can! :P
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They have 500 000 photos now, 2,5 million $ pay
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Seriously they choose your best photo who dont have 4 sell on the last 1 years. This photo is still the best photo on your portfolio. When you give this on free section you kill the market ! Still this free section apear the sell is bad. Never see as bad. stop free your work
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This photo is still the best photo on your portfolio. When you give this on free section you kill the market !
Sorry to shoot down your theory, but not one of the 30 images that Adobe selected from the 3,275 of mine on their site is "the best photo on [my] portfolio." Not a single one.
And I doubt many others would agree with your theory either.
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Seriously they choose your best photo who dont have 4 sell on the last 1 years. This photo is still the best photo on your portfolio. When you give this on free section you kill the market ! Still this free section apear the sell is bad. Never see as bad. stop free your work
absolute (Kelvin zero) nonsense -- NONE of these are my best photos, as they would have had more than 4 sales in the last year. you just dont what you're talking about
and again, meaningless comment from someone who won't link to any actual portfolio
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and again, meaningless comment from someone who won't link to any actual portfolio
Actually the fact that you do link your portfolio, raises doubts about your freedom to tell it as it is, given the known history of reprisals against contributors who criticized certain agencies.
So going out of your way in praising an agency while making your details known is NOT helping your credibility. On the contrary! 😉
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and again, meaningless comment from someone who won't link to any actual portfolio
Actually the fact that you do link your portfolio, raises doubts about your freedom to tell it as it is, given the known history of reprisals against contributors who criticized certain agencies.
So going out of your way in praising an agency while making your details known is NOT helping your credibility. On the contrary! 😉
Oh, good grief. Get a life!
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and again, meaningless comment from someone who won't link to any actual portfolio
Actually the fact that you do link your portfolio, raises doubts about your freedom to tell it as it is, given the known history of reprisals against contributors who criticized certain agencies.
So going out of your way in praising an agency while making your details known is NOT helping your credibility. On the contrary! 😉
ROFLMAO!!!! where did you study logic?
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and again, meaningless comment from someone who won't link to any actual portfolio
Actually the fact that you do link your portfolio, raises doubts about your freedom to tell it as it is, given the known history of reprisals against contributors who criticized certain agencies.
So going out of your way in praising an agency while making your details known is NOT helping your credibility. On the contrary! 😉
ROFLMAO!!!! where did you study logic?
Great question!
Obvious answer: Nowhere.
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and again, meaningless comment from someone who won't link to any actual portfolio
Actually the fact that you do link your portfolio, raises doubts about your freedom to tell it as it is, given the known history of reprisals against contributors who criticized certain agencies.
So going out of your way in praising an agency while making your details known is NOT helping your credibility. On the contrary! 😉
ROFLMAO!!!! where did you study logic?
Instead of internet interjections, argue logically, if you believe in logic, ROFLMAO (!!!!).
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Can't believe that people now love renting their images for $5 for whole year.. 12 months.. I'm not with Adobe but surely they don't accept images of anything and everything and the images accepted are reasonably quite good. Anyone who has experience with multiple stock agencies, would know that an image with zero sales in a site, can be the best seller in other site. But each to his own...
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and again, meaningless comment from someone who won't link to any actual portfolio
Actually the fact that you do link your portfolio, raises doubts about your freedom to tell it as it is, given the known history of reprisals against contributors who criticized certain agencies.
So going out of your way in praising an agency while making your details known is NOT helping your credibility. On the contrary! 😉
ROFLMAO!!!! where did you study logic?
Instead of internet interjections, argue logically, if you believe in logic, ROFLMAO (!!!!).
As I understand, you nominated photos for free too.
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Can't believe that people now love renting their images for $5 for whole year.. 12 months.. I'm not with Adobe but surely they don't accept images of anything and everything and the images accepted are reasonably quite good. Anyone who has experience with multiple stock agencies, would know that an image with zero sales in a site, can be the best seller in other site. But each to his own...
But thats why you can deselect the images that you don't want in the free section.
I deselected lots of images. Not just the ones that are selling well on other sites, but also the ones that I felt were too good to give away for the price offered.
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and again, meaningless comment from someone who won't link to any actual portfolio
Actually the fact that you do link your portfolio, raises doubts about your freedom to tell it as it is, given the known history of reprisals against contributors who criticized certain agencies.
So going out of your way in praising an agency while making your details known is NOT helping your credibility. On the contrary! 😉
ROFLMAO!!!! where did you study logic?
Instead of internet interjections, argue logically, if you believe in logic, ROFLMAO (!!!!).
As I understand, you nominated photos for free too.
Yes. I had a few selected when the program was announced, and now I have two free photos that might kill some of your sales, indeed ;). And I got $10 for them, $10 Adobe will soon regret.
But your quote is not about that. It's about discrediting people who chose to remain anonymous to protect their privacy.
A debate is about ideas, not about persons, their ports or their looks. A hypothesis can be right or wrong in itself, and it has nothing to do with how tall or heavy is the person who expressed it.
Believing that your logic is more valuable, because you show your port is illogical. ;)
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Logic. It wouldn't be logical for Adobe to pay contributors 2,5 milion dollars, if there wasn't any financial gains in the long term. Financial gains, I mean, more customers in the future, more sales, more money for contributors also. According to Mat, when they first run experiment with only selected number of contributors, it went well, that's why they did it again with larger number of contributors.
Now, should I believe your logic, or Mat's logic, who has first hand knowledge about this.
And if this means customers migrating from SS and iS to Adobe, I'm perfectly fine with it. I prefer getting $0,36 for sub sale than $0,10 or $0,02.
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But thats why you can deselect the images that you don't want in the free section.
I deselected lots of images. Not just the ones that are selling well on other sites, but also the ones that I felt were too good to give away for the price offered.
Exactly.
Much of my decision depended on how "rare and special" or "difficult to get" a given image was. Whether it was ever likely to be a best seller had nothing to do with it in my eyes.
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I had images from 2011 (my initial images) that let's say are embarrassing compared to most of the images you folks have on line that were selected and accepted by Adobe. These bad images don't even sell for $.01 on iStock! So why not take $5 for basically junk--- like a garage sale in my eyes.
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Logic. It wouldn't be logical for Adobe to pay contributors 2,5 milion dollars, if there wasn't any financial gains in the long term. Financial gains, I mean, more customers in the future, more sales, more money for contributors also. According to Mat, when they first run experiment with only selected number of contributors, it went well, that's why they did it again with larger number of contributors.
Now, should I believe your logic, or Mat's logic, who has first hand knowledge about this.
And if this means customers migrating from SS and iS to Adobe, I'm perfectly fine with it. I prefer getting $0,36 for sub sale than $0,10 or $0,02.
Of course, Adobe believes in their sales growth hypothesis.
I am challenging that.
Existing Adobe customers will prefer free and stop buying as they would, in normal circumstances. A free collection will not stimulate more sales from existing customers. On the contrary.
While Adobe might see a customer migration from other agencies, customers who are rushing to take advantage of free photos, it is unlikely that they will buy much more, when their motivation was to get free stuff, in the first place.
So, customers moving over from SS will not give you $0.36, but rather something very close to $0.
Let's say that some customers who migrated from SS will buy some more stuff and Adobe might see some additional income. Do you think that their competitors will sit on their hands looking at how Adobe is draining their customer base?
It's only a matter of time before they will react with something similar, returning Adobe to square one and closing this vicious circle.
And then, there will be enough free stuff on the market to satisfy a big part of the global demand.
And then sales will also vanish for Adobe. Somebody might even get fired for betting millions on a losing horse.
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Let's not forget that Adobe is, most of all, a softwear company and their main goal is to sell their softwear subscription, not stock photos.
So, when they say that offering free images was a success and has driven more customers to their site, they don't necessarily have to mean stock photo customers. Just a thought.
I can only talk about my port and my sales, but I certainly have not seen any increase in sales on Adobe for the past months.
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Let's not forget that Adobe is, most of all, a softwear company and their main goal is to sell their softwear subscription, not stock photos.
So, when they say that offering free images was a success and has driven more customers to their site, they don't necessarily have to mean stock photo customers. Just a thought.
I can only talk about my port and my sales, but I certainly have not seen any increase in sales on Adobe for the past months.
I think exactly the same!
It is all about getting more software customer OR: Already excist software user getting free stuff, so that they will continue to use it instead of moving to other but free software, which is not that much worse. With free photos by just clicking inside the software makes it nicer than other softwares, where they still have to search for photos - could be Adobe, but no must.
So, if Adobe says they were sucsessful, then in kind of software.
Stock photos are only a means to an end for software sales. Sorry, last sentence is google translation.
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Of course, Adobe believes in their sales growth hypothesis.
I am challenging that.
Existing Adobe customers will prefer free and stop buying as they would, in normal circumstances. A free collection will not stimulate more sales from existing customers. On the contrary.
your 'challenge' is counterfactual - (transaltion:you are wrong ) -- free collections have NOT cut into other sales, as reported by those who actually have some real-life data - your unsupported guess about what will or wont work & your 'understanding' of buyers' habits is nonsense -- aka WAG!
...customers who are rushing to take advantage of free photos, it is unlikely that they will buy much more, when their motivation was to get free stuff, in the first place....
so - someone who was never going to buy any images STILL isnt buying any images - how does that affect my bottom line?
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Of course, Adobe believes in their sales growth hypothesis.
I am challenging that.
Existing Adobe customers will prefer free and stop buying as they would, in normal circumstances. A free collection will not stimulate more sales from existing customers. On the contrary.
your 'challenge' is counterfactual - (transaltion:you are wrong ) -- free collections have NOT cut into other sales, as reported by those who actually have some real-life data - your unsupported guess about what will or wont work & your 'understanding' of buyers' habits is nonsense -- aka WAG!
...customers who are rushing to take advantage of free photos, it is unlikely that they will buy much more, when their motivation was to get free stuff, in the first place....
so - someone who was never going to buy any images STILL isnt buying any images - how does that affect my bottom line?
And yet, you brought no counter-argument.
Just saying "you are wrong" means nothing. ::)
Same as showing or not showing your port: it adds nothing to this discussion.
You also misunderstood the customer migration hypothesis. Those who migrate are deal chasers, people who may have purchased some stuff from other agencies, but they are migrating now only because this new free stuff is enough for their needs. :-\
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Am I the only one who is bored to tears with the controversy this thread has produced?
I stick around more out of curiosity to see how long the argument will last or who will wind up scoring the most points or who will have the last word, rather than any outright interest.
And frankly, none of it matters anyway, because by now we've all made our decision, taken our position for/against the Adobe free collection, seen our photos get chosen or not, received our advance payments or not, and moved on.
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Am I the only one who is bored to tears with the controversy this thread has produced?
At least the only person who is bored to tears by a conversation, yet not only sticks around, but also contributes to it.
If a converstain online bored me, I would walk away instead of wasting my time.
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Am I the only one who is bored to tears with the controversy this thread has produced?
At least the only person who is bored to tears by a conversation, yet not only sticks around, but also contributes to it.
If a converstain online bored me, I would walk away instead of wasting my time.
As I said, I'm bored by the controversy, not by the conversation.
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Let's not forget that Adobe is, most of all, a softwear company and their main goal is to sell their softwear subscription, not stock photos.
So, when they say that offering free images was a success and has driven more customers to their site, they don't necessarily have to mean stock photo customers. Just a thought.
I can only talk about my port and my sales, but I certainly have not seen any increase in sales on Adobe for the past months.
Right. This isn't about selling stock images, or our stock images, it's all about CC subscriptions. We are an expense for Adobe marketing Creative Cloud.
I haven't seen any change, either way, after the free photos have gone live. I did make some money from photos that have never made $5 in their lifetime, across all agencies, since 2008. People can argue hypothetical, but the facts are, I made money from images that had never made $5 total - ever. And I will concede that this has only been months. But I don't think the free images will change anything for any of us.
But thats why you can deselect the images that you don't want in the free section.
I deselected lots of images. Not just the ones that are selling well on other sites, but also the ones that I felt were too good to give away for the price offered.
Pretty simple isn't that? :) We have a choice, to participate or not and a choice of what images. To me that kind of ended all debate over money, or the whole programs existence. Besides, it isn't about stock images or us or bringing new buyers from other agencies. (see above, it's about CC)