MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => Adobe Stock => Topic started by: MatHayward on April 15, 2021, 09:23
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Today Adobe Stock announced Pro Edition, a new plan for Creative Cloud for Teams and Enterprises, which supplies unlimited downloads from our Standard collection of photos, illustrations, and vectors. Contributors receive 33% of Adobe revenue from stock. Payouts will be distributed among Contributors proportional to their downloads.
Adobe created Pro Edition for medium to large businesses and enterprises, aiming to equip all users in an organization with access to stock content alongside their CC apps. This empowers many more users to create, as opposed to only select users as has been the case in the past. Pro Edition is only available to qualifying businesses, to maximize service value to customers and overall payouts to Contributors.
For more info about the Pro Edition, please see the Contributor FAQ here: https://helpx.adobe.com/stock/contributor/help/contributor-faq-for-cct-cce-pro-edition-.html
Let us know if you have any questions,
Mat Hayward
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Summarizing some important points from the FAQ:
- No minimum guarantee applies. Contributors will receive 33% royalties of the Adobe Stock revenue from Pro Edition downloads for every seat sold. Payouts will be distributed among Contributors proportional to their downloads.
- CCT Pro Edition assets come with an enhanced license. Read more details about the enhanced license. CCE Pro Edition assets include an extended license to remain consistent with other Adobe Stock plans for Enterprise. Read more about the extended license.
- It’s not possible to opt out of making content available to Pro Edition buyers.
So: Pennys for ELs, no opt out.
Sounds like a complete desaster...
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Bye Bye Adobe Stock !
I was one of the best quality contributor ... Each of my photos requires 1 or 2 hour of post production and the result is appreciated by the buyers. You deserve a collection of amateur snapshots
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For god's sake why don't you agencies just stop it!
We are not cows to be milked to death :'(
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So my question is when are these royalties are calculated? By the quotes below from your FAQ it is not clear. If it’s proportional to downloads is it at the end of the month or somehow calculated on the fly??? But no matter how this SUCKS.
“Contributors will receive 33% royalties of the Adobe Stock revenue from Pro Edition downloads for every seat sold. Payouts will be distributed among Contributors proportional to their downloads.”
And:
“Earnings from Pro Edition are labeled ‘Custom’ on your earnings page in the Contributor Portal.”
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I was one of the best quality contributor...
Then we are honoured by your presence. What went wrong though... why did you stop being the best quality contributor?
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Then we are honoured by your presence. What went wrong though... why did you stop being the best quality contributor?
I am in the top 1500 in the AS contributor ranking with less than 2000 photos.
I read that there are contributors with 10,000 photos earning $ 50 a month ... so am I among the best in quality or not?
I therefore think that my type of work should no longer be in stock and be rewarded with 1 or 2 cents. I was wrong. I will take other roads.
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The FAQ doesn't really give contributors much information about what to expect from this new plan - dropping the minimum royalty is probably a massive loss, but it depends on what sorts of prices the 33% is based on. We don't even have a range.
Extended license for all sales sounds terrible - will users of these plans be able to sell unlimited numbers of items for resale (like large prints) for one small price? Is the extended license the same as your current extended license or different? Contributors don't need to know every detail of every corporate deal, but we need to know just how much of a rights giveaway this new plan is. I wasn't reading carefully enough. It's an enhanced license, not an extended license Adobe Stock is offering. Still more rights for less money, but not as bad as allowing resale items, etc. I still got it wrong! Pro Teams get enhanced; Pro Enterprise get extended. You have to ask why Adobe would offer extensive rights like that in an unlimited subscription. "Consistency" - I didn't realize that enterprise customers already got extended licenses for their downloads...
To clarify what the actual payout is, if a subscriber pays $100 per month (hypothetical) for the new plan and downloads just one asset some month, will the lucky contributor of that one item receive a $33 royalty or is there some other deduction from the gross payment before the contributor portion is calculated?
Will Adobe have any rules to prevent a busy subscriber from downloading the entire collection in one month and then unsubscribing? In other words, what does "unlimited" really mean?
And to echo the question above, how will Adobe report the "custom" download when the number sharing in the monthly take isn't immediately known.
I can't see any good news at all for contributors (to the standard collection) from this. What is the theoretical good news for us from Adobe's perspective?
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(https://i.imgflip.com/55t254.jpg)
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What I really don't understand is why so many of you appear to think any company or corporate entity is your friend.
Adobe is a publicly traded company and shareholders are their priority, not you the contributor.
Adobe like any other agency is completely self serving. Adobe is not doing this for your benefit they are doing it for "corporate profit" and only "corporate profit".
The reality is if one takes the time to actually read the contract you most certainly have the "copyright" on your content but the "agency" has every right to use your content and reward you as they see fit. It's like this with all agencies these days.
I think SS said it the best and represents the attitude of the industry as a whole... If you don't like it then leave.
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Very bland FAQs that gives us no idea what we may earn from this plan. I am assuming it will be less than normal though........
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What I really don't understand is why so many of you appear to think any company or corporate entity is your friend.
I'm under no illusions that any business is my friend. I am, however, a supplier to a number of stock agencies and I have certain expectations about how a supplier should be treated.
Sometimes the expectations are based on a prior business arrangement - this usually comes up when the terms of a previous deal are changed, typically not in the contributor's (supplier's) favor.
Sometimes it's because the line between a business transaction and exploitation has been crossed. Typically that's subjective, but given the massive power imbalance between the agencies and contributors, it's par for the course that the powerful exploit the less powerful.
I understand how these things work, but as a fan of regulated capitalism vs. "greed is good", a bit of protest to see if changes can be made isn't out of line.
I can always leave Adobe Stock later if it turns out that the deal is as bad as it looks and no changes can be had. I checked my RPD for April so far at Adobe Stock and it's 84 cents. Not great, not terrible. Even if I put aside for a minute the extended license issue, if the RPD drops a lot and volume stays about the same, it'll tell me where this is heading.
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Why don't you pay us a monthly salary? The commissions thing no longer makes sense. Give me a salary for every x photos and sell them however you want.
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Sigh.
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I see the race to the bottom has really accelerated.
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Time to start deleting my good work ...
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I am sure Adobe has estimated the cost and expected volume - what is the average expected cost per download. Also highest and lowest?
If the first year is free, what number are you going to calculate 33% of?
When will we start to see these "sales"?
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-paying for access to Stock
-include unlimited download
-include an extended license
Contributors will receive 33% -No minimum guarantee applies
Exampel: Costomer pays 100/month and downloads 1000000 images/month
-> Contributor gets 33% of 0,0001 = 0,000033
for a extended license ...
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**** *** ****
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What I really don't understand is why so many of you appear to think any company or corporate entity is your friend.
I'm under no illusions that any business is my friend. I am, however, a supplier to a number of stock agencies and I have certain expectations about how a supplier should be treated.
Sometimes the expectations are based on a prior business arrangement - this usually comes up when the terms of a previous deal are changed, typically not in the contributor's (supplier's) favor.
Sometimes it's because the line between a business transaction and exploitation has been crossed. Typically that's subjective, but given the massive power imbalance between the agencies and contributors, it's par for the course that the powerful exploit the less powerful.
I understand how these things work, but as a fan of regulated capitalism vs. "greed is good", a bit of protest to see if changes can be made isn't out of line. I can always leave Adobe Stock later if it turns out that the deal is as bad as it looks and no changes can be had.
I totally agree with you Jo Ann, and I have no doubt that you are under no illusions. I have similar expectations based on a prior business arrangement. This whole industry lacks integrity. The concern from my perspective is that the "greed is good" in this industry knows no limits and has become the mythological character of Erysichthon.
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Hi, Lets read this from other point of view, ok Matt?
Today Adobe Stock announced Pro Edition, a new plan for Creative Cloud for Teams and Enterprises...
1) which supplies UNLIMITED downloads from OUR WORK collection of photos, illustrations, and vectors.
2) Adobe TAKES 67% of the sale.
Adobe Stock DOESN'T DO ANYTHING besides giving us storage and cannot really justify why is taking 67% of it.
My remarks: I will never buy anything from Adobe until i can download UNLIMITED TIMES your software too.
Best regards
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So, if downloads are unlimited, how will it be calculated per one sold image? How will AS know how many images buyer is planning to download?
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Super important question which hasn't been answered yet... are royalties calculated per individual download, or as a total over the month? And do you round up (unlikely), or down?
Because if it's on an individual basis, and you don't round up, then any subscriber who downloads enough images for us to be just shy of one cent... will result in us earning nothing at all from them. And if there is a huge demand for content as you say, then if every subscriber downloads enough content for us all to be just shy of one cent on every download... nobody will earn anything at all, ever. Apart from Adobe who ends up getting 100% due to rounding... like in Superman III... kind of.
Also, what happens to the stock portion of a buyers subscription if they don't download anything during a month or billing period? Is the 33% shared with contributors or does Adobe keep it all?
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What I really don't understand is why so many of you appear to think any company or corporate entity is your friend.
Adobe is a publicly traded company and shareholders are their priority, not you the contributor.
Adobe like any other agency is completely self serving. Adobe is not doing this for your benefit they are doing it for "corporate profit" and only "corporate profit".
Of course no agency is our friend, and I have no illusion we contributors are respected in any way.
But I always thought Adobe's main revenue comes from their apps, not their stock, so I hoped they wouldn't yet walk over to the dark side of "unlimited downloads"...They are (were) one of the few agencies who offered decent RPD. Well, not anymore they ain't.
The world of microstock is completely effed up and already becoming unsustainable. I've already moved on to greener pastures and stopped producing microstock content (instead doing commissioned work).
@ Mat: "No minimum guarantee applies." So we can expect 0.02 royalties then? We probably don't ever get to see how many items were downloaded for the lump sum we'll receive, right?
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OH MY GOD! :(
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Depressing as this news is — and yes, Mat, it is thoroughly depressing! — it shows why I still do tune into this forum and want it to continue. Very good insights provided here, not only from Mat but also from other long-long-time stockers.
Of course, if AS follows iS and SS down the greedy stock-peddler's rat hole (as it appears about to do), I won't need this forum any more, because I won't be bothering with stock any more.
Without AS as the last decent agency, it's just not worth the bother.
Sad.
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So the latest 'creators' favourite' bites off the hand that feeds them. >:(
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What I really don't understand is why so many of you appear to think any company or corporate entity is your friend.
Adobe is a publicly traded company and shareholders are their priority, not you the contributor.
Adobe like any other agency is completely self serving. Adobe is not doing this for your benefit they are doing it for "corporate profit" and only "corporate profit".
The reality is if one takes the time to actually read the contract you most certainly have the "copyright" on your content but the "agency" has every right to use your content and reward you as they see fit. It's like this with all agencies these days.
I think SS said it the best and represents the attitude of the industry as a whole... If you don't like it then leave.
Who said "friend"?
A contract is normally signed between business partners, not between friends.
All business partners are defending their interests first and foremost, while ideally trying to achieve a win-win situation, when possible, knowing that stable long-term relationships with steady partners are more efficient.
That's all it is, really. So no, no friends.
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I really hope that 'karma is a bitch' works for microstock agencies too and that they in near future won't have anything good to offer to their unlimited buyers.
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I might as well stop feeding the beast and give away my entire portfolio for free to Unsplash. It's a sad time we live in. :'(
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I might as well stop feeding the beast and give away my entire portfolio for free to Unsplash. It's a sad time we live in. :'(
You mean you're going to give it away for free to Getty. Nice. Stop feeding the beast but keep feeding the beast anyway for free.
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I might as well stop feeding the beast and give away my entire portfolio for free to Unsplash. It's a sad time we live in. :'(
You mean you're going to give it away for free to Getty. Nice. Stop feeding the beast but keep feeding the beast anyway for free.
Oh, it's Getty now? I did not know that. We are truly living the beginning of the end...
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I might as well stop feeding the beast and give away my entire portfolio for free to Unsplash. It's a sad time we live in. :'(
You mean you're going to give it away for free to Getty. Nice. Stop feeding the beast but keep feeding the beast anyway for free.
Oh, it's Getty now? I did not know that. We are truly living the beginning of the end...
https://www.microstockgroup.com/istockphoto-com/istock-acquires-unsplash (https://www.microstockgroup.com/istockphoto-com/istock-acquires-unsplash)
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So the latest 'creators' favourite' bites off the hand that feeds them. >:(
Yep, apparently 'tis true.
And to think just about a year ago we were all soooooo hopeful that Adobe would be the salvation of this fast-sinking ship.
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Feeling absolutely gutted right now :'(
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I feel pretty stupid. I was on Twitter saying don't buy from SS, buy from Adobe, they are the "good guys" after we got played by Shutterstock in the middle of a pandemic ...
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For now there is a written mention that video assets are not included in this edition. As for the rest, they go out on an all-you-can-eat subscription. What’s the permanent damage with that, aside earnings loss? People get used to it, like using Spotify or Netflix. You do not own the content, you are merely renting it. Then, the customer is used to that idea and only a small number of individuals rents a movie or buys a single. See what DJs are doing. With closed clubs, they are begging for peanuts on Twitch with live shows, while streaming services are paying them cents for their music productions. That is the worst to happen in stock and it will probably be irreversible. Buyers will get used to that idea. You get the same when you buy from the biggest stock audio library for Broadcast use from a British company. One yearly subscription for all tracks. If not, buying a single track just costs to much. Adobe is trying to tell us that: For now only the big customer is renting the library, the small individual is not.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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I was just wondering…
Could Dreamstime turn out to be the Next Big Thing???
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For now there is a written mention that video assets are not included in this edition. ...
Right now, "premium" collections, video, templates, etc. are not included. But look to Shutterstock's example and take a wild guess that it's only a matter of time before more things are included.
Shutterstock used not to offer video subscriptions, but then they did. They they were expensive, until they were producing small (under $1) royalties when dowloaded through the API from various partners.
Now, with the "Flex" subscription, Shutterstock is including everything - video, audio & effects as well
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/shutterstock-launches-flex-subscriptions-a-customizable-royalty-free-plan-for-small-and-medium-sized-businesses-301268299.html (https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/shutterstock-launches-flex-subscriptions-a-customizable-royalty-free-plan-for-small-and-medium-sized-businesses-301268299.html)
https://www.shutterstock.com/business/flex-subscriptions (https://www.shutterstock.com/business/flex-subscriptions)
I know Adobe isn't Shutterstock, but I can only imagine that the new "unlimited" Pro Edition is in response to Shutterstock Unlimited from a few months back. IMO, it's only a matter of time
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I was just wondering…
Could Dreamstime turn out to be the Next Big Thing???
Even if they were, there isn't a great history with Big Things.
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Well, if in the last time, i can't buy new photography gear, now i will never buy. I will continue with my old cameras, Canon XT and Canon 60D until they broke or i sell them. Also to my old speedlights, i hope they keep working a lot :(
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I was just wondering…
Could Dreamstime turn out to be the Next Big Thing???
You have to see the pattern here I hope.
- Getty/Istock is evil we love Shutterstock
- Oh, uh, Shutterstock is now evil, we love Adobe
- Oh, uh, Adobe is now evil, we love.........
ETA: I keep reading about blockchain technology at some point potentially connecting individuals and cutting out the corporations. Will be interesting to see where it goes.
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Thanks everyone for your candid feedback and questions. Please know that many hours have been spent at Adobe to explore and understand the potential impact and benefits to both business clients and Contributors in introducing these offers.
To answer the question about what “unlimited” really means – it means there is no monthly cap on number of downloads. While we do not anticipate abuse due to the limited availability of these plans, our team will be closely monitoring customer behavior to ensure it remains in the best interest of all parties involved.
There’s a nuance here that I want to make a bit more clear, and that is: the existing customer base for stock isn’t going anywhere. These new offers are primarily aimed at equipping more users in SMB and enterprise organizations with access to creative tools and stock content — users who typically aren’t currently licensing stock. We are leveraging the massive base of customers loyal to Adobe around the world to continue growing the marketplace. This benefits contributors, customers, and Adobe Stock.
Adobe needs to be responsive to market changes, while balancing the needs of creative Contributors, maximizing your value and payouts, too.
Regarding the questions about royalty calculations, every day, we generate an overall earnings pool equal to 33% of our total Adobe Stock CCE Pro revenue for the day. We then allocate these earnings to contributors based on the number of downloads. As a reminder, for customers taking advantage of the first year free offer, Adobe Stock is absorbing this cost. The revenue they would be paying outside of the promo offer is added into the overall earnings pool.
To clarify the difference in licenses. Pro Edition for Enterprise customers (CCE) downloads are provided an Extended license and Pro Edition for Teams (CCT) are provided an Enhanced license. Please review the links provided in the FAQ for additional information about the license agreements. https://helpx.adobe.com/stock/contributor/help/contributor-faq-for-cct-cce-pro-edition-.html
I am traveling tomorrow for a family matter but will do my best to check in when I can. We truly appreciate your feedback and value your contribution to Adobe Stock.
Thank you,
Mat Hayward
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There’s a nuance here that I want to make a bit more clear, and that is: the existing customer base for stock isn’t going anywhere. These new offers are primarily aimed at equipping more users in SMB and enterprise organizations with access to creative tools and stock content — users who typically aren’t currently licensing stock.
How often Getty have said similar things when they introduce less favourable sales: "we're reaching people who don't currently license stock". But strangely enough, earnings decrease each time, whereas if they were telling the truth, they'd increase, if only by a bit: regular buyers would still be buying and there would be new buyers buying at lower rates.
Won't your loyal regular buyers be miffed to find that newbies are getting preferential rates? "I want what they're having."
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I was just wondering…
Could Dreamstime turn out to be the Next Big Thing???
You have to see the pattern here I hope.
- Getty/Istock is evil we love Shutterstock
- Oh, uh, Shutterstock is now evil, we love Adobe
- Oh, uh, Adobe is now evil, we love.........
Yeah, I actually do see that pattern. My question was meant to be tongue-in-cheek, or maybe ironic.
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I was just wondering…
Could Dreamstime turn out to be the Next Big Thing???
You have to see the pattern here I hope.
- Getty/Istock is evil we love Shutterstock
- Oh, uh, Shutterstock is now evil, we love Adobe
- Oh, uh, Adobe is now evil, we love.........
Yeah, I actually do see that pattern. My question was meant to be tongue-in-cheek, or maybe ironic.
Haaa, okay. I've seen this exact same question asked over and over so I missed the sarcasm on this one.
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I was just wondering…
Could Dreamstime turn out to be the Next Big Thing???
You have to see the pattern here I hope.
- Getty/Istock is evil we love Shutterstock
- Oh, uh, Shutterstock is now evil, we love Adobe
- Oh, uh, Adobe is now evil, we love.........
Yeah, I actually do see that pattern. My question was meant to be tongue-in-cheek, or maybe ironic.
Haaa, okay. I've seen this exact same question asked over and over so I missed the sarcasm on this one.
I knew that! These days, it's so hard to understand what people "really mean" or what's "real and true" that we're all a bit on our guard. With good reason.
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Matt,
Seeing as we already get sales listed as ‘Custom’ shouldn’t these be called something else in the spirit if true transparency?
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Unpopular opinion here, so I expect a lot of downvote. But I'll still chip in.
I actually like this move from Adobe. This move is very different from royalty cut like what other agencies did recently. What Adobe did here is pulling in new customers by offering better things. I would rather these customers getting cheaply from Adobe then stealing our stuffs from pirated site. This is very similar move by Canva who at the end double your earnings by offering unlimited download. They did it with success, and I am very surprised.
Sad to say this, but the unlimited download thing is inevitable. If Adobe don't offer unlimited, others agencies will, and that would make Adobe less relevance. If old-time-contributor like you and me don't submit to unlimited agencies, other new-contributors will submit. This is not something we can stop even if we wanted to. Supply over demand, what can I say more?
So, Mat Hayward, I wish Adobe can prove many of us wrong, and show us our improved earnings in near future :)
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Leremy, is Canva also offering extended license for unlimited sales, so buyers can resell images and earn money from them while artist gets peanuts? I don't think so.
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I'll just pass by the "it's a new set of customers" contention as I don't have any data beyond the number of times I have heard that and the number of times it's been the way things worked out (lots & zero)
But please take a quick look at what a terrible lottery system the scheme Mat described sets up for contributors. For Adobe, it's all great - they get their 67% of the total subscription money regardless of when or how many downloads are made. They have certainty and predictability.
Contributors on the other hand have a system where what you make for a given number of downloads is a total crapshoot depending on what day the downloads are made. This is truly despicable.
These numbers are all completely hypothetical for a week of downloads and two imaginary contributors, M and H (miserable and happy?). Both contributors make the same number of downloads for the week but M has $24 and H has $72
As a contributor, you may well see wild swings in income for the same level of salability or quality or whatever you want to call it.
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Leremy, is Canva also offering extended license for unlimited sales, so buyers can resell images and earn money from them while artist gets peanuts? I don't think so.
I thought resell of images wasn't allowed for either scheme - but sales of posters or mugs or whatever is for one of them.
I don't really understand how these are all "new" buyers, maybe there will be a few new people in an organization brought on board with unlimited, but all the people in that organization that used to be buying images other ways aren't going to keep buying them that way when the organization has a buffet available.
It seems most of the "new customers" are existing customers of other plans or other sites - so bringing them on board to this plan is good for Adobe, and fine as far as I am concerned if they come from Getty or SS, but otherwise not so useful for contributors.
Not sure what we as contributors can do about this trend or this specific scheme - other than only do low to no cost shoots or just get into another line of work.
I'd love to have my income increase under this scheme, but I am pretty skeptical at this point. I mean - when was the last time something "exciting" really was exciting?
It would be nice to have them reported as their own thing instead of lumping them in with "custom"
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Matt,
Seeing as we already get sales listed as ‘Custom’ shouldn’t these be called something else in the spirit if true transparency?
I had that same thought.
Right now, I like seeing those "Custom" sales, because they're almost always higher and I understand what they are.
Once they get mixed up with something else, it probably won't be nearly as clear.
Mat, could you ask for those sales to be identified to us as something like "Corporate" or "Pro" or something else distinctive… so we can continue to understand what we're being paid for?
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I was just wondering…
Could Dreamstime turn out to be the Next Big Thing???
Even if they were, there isn't a great history with Big Things.
As they say in New Orleans: "True dat!"
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Microstock is no longer a viable professional option for 99% of contributors. If you live in a cheap country it might work for you a little longer but this has been as a business has been a loosing proposition for a long time.
If you do it as a hobby I also think micro is not a good proposition because it limits you creatively a lot. Somehow you begin to pump content that many times is absolutely worthless from a creative point of view although it might rack in the dollars for the corporations.
Think wisely if you think a new lens every year is worth to drain your inspiration and creativity to the bottom.
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So, Mat Hayward, I wish Adobe can prove many of us wrong, and show us our improved earnings in near future :)
I think all of us hope for that too!
You can tell many of us have been burned too many times by "exciting news" from the corporations that, at least in theory, are supposed to represent us.
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Thanks everyone for your candid feedback and questions. Please know that many hours have been spent at Adobe to explore and understand the potential impact and benefits to both business clients and Contributors in introducing these offers.
To answer the question about what “unlimited” really means – it means there is no monthly cap on number of downloads. While we do not anticipate abuse due to the limited availability of these plans, our team will be closely monitoring customer behavior to ensure it remains in the best interest of all parties involved.
There’s a nuance here that I want to make a bit more clear, and that is: the existing customer base for stock isn’t going anywhere. These new offers are primarily aimed at equipping more users in SMB and enterprise organizations with access to creative tools and stock content — users who typically aren’t currently licensing stock. We are leveraging the massive base of customers loyal to Adobe around the world to continue growing the marketplace. This benefits contributors, customers, and Adobe Stock.
Adobe needs to be responsive to market changes, while balancing the needs of creative Contributors, maximizing your value and payouts, too.
Regarding the questions about royalty calculations, every day, we generate an overall earnings pool equal to 33% of our total Adobe Stock CCE Pro revenue for the day. We then allocate these earnings to contributors based on the number of downloads. As a reminder, for customers taking advantage of the first year free offer, Adobe Stock is absorbing this cost. The revenue they would be paying outside of the promo offer is added into the overall earnings pool.
To clarify the difference in licenses. Pro Edition for Enterprise customers (CCE) downloads are provided an Extended license and Pro Edition for Teams (CCT) are provided an Enhanced license. Please review the links provided in the FAQ for additional information about the license agreements. https://helpx.adobe.com/stock/contributor/help/contributor-faq-for-cct-cce-pro-edition-.html
I am traveling tomorrow for a family matter but will do my best to check in when I can. We truly appreciate your feedback and value your contribution to Adobe Stock.
Thank you,
Mat Hayward
Seriously these enterprize customers are usually the richest but they need to have our hard work at next to nothing prices c'mon Adobe. Why is it the image producers never get a say in this? Our only choice is to suck it up or walk!!
"While we do not anticipate abuse due to the limited availability of these plans, our team will be closely monitoring customer behavior to ensure it remains in the best interest of all parties involved."
Of course it will end up being abused and to assume otherwise is an exercise in naivety
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Whenever a stock agency makes some change in favor of their customers and themselves while kicking their contributors with feet I am not surprised. Customers are valued, contributors are not. There are too many of us. We are easily replacable, there is an over-supply of us. Even if thousands pull a port from an agency, it doesn't hurt them.
So I thought nothing could shock me anymore. However, this move really surprised me, because Adobe is primary a softwear producer and secondly a stock agency. (Or is this shifting?) Did Adobe forget that their contributors - artists and photographers - are also their customers who use their products? Is making these deals to some of your customers really worth pissing of many other customers? There are good alternatives to photoshop and lightroom after all. ???
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The 33% earning of total revenue is a good thing to hear, at least. So, I felt positive with this.
A fixed percent of total revenue is important as it is very different from giving you $0.38 or $0.10 per download.
Almost all agencies swallow up the remaining unused sub... I think this is the most unfair practice because many buyers did not used up all the subscription downloads. So, even if they promise you 50%, it is more likely 10% only. They also have the motivation to sell less subs so they can eat up all the unused subs. What make you think they screw up the search and accept rubbish to their sites? To make it harder for subscriber to download more. So, a fixed percentage of total revenue is better.
Here is my prediction. All agencies will follow this UNLIMITED THINGS very soon. Agencies who stubbornly stick with the old plan will be gone. Microstock will become something like Netflix or Spotify. Subscription will be very cheap and offer unlimited downloads. People who used to steal our stuffs from pirated sites will soon become a customer (which is a good thing). When you thought they would simply abuse by downloading all the assets, you will find that they won't simply because they are so cheap and easily accessible now. It will become a norm for every designers to have an access to these unlimited subscription sites. Pirated sites will have less and less downloads. Then you will be wondering, why they don't download all your stuffs since they have unlimited access? Why? Simply because is a waste of time and space. Same goes to yourself for not watching all the movies in Netflix, or listen to all the songs on Spotify, or download and play all the games at your phone.
All and all, this industry landscape is changing. I am very sure many old-timers will give up, while many new others will come in at the same time. I assume many of us here are around 40-70 years old and we felt violated by all these plans that devaluing our works. We are all exhausted too. But for those 20 year old kids who just joined in, they see gold. I have talked to some of them, and they are super pump up. I told them golden era is over since 2013 and is not worth submitting, but they are still pump up. I guess maybe it is just us that is fading away and become irrelevant.
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Not sure if this is a good move or not.
Adobe has a huge loyal customer base, if they are introducing anything then they must have gone through a lot of research.
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I appreciate it was Mat who gave us this ”exciting news”, not by a forum moderator as was done on SS. It was a terrible way to announce something so important. That alone shows how much they value their contributors on SS.
I'm trying to find the positive aspects of this, if there are any. Perhaps the number of downloads will increase with this reform?
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Not sure if this is a good move or not.
Adobe has a huge loyal customer base, if they are introducing anything then they must have gone through a lot of research.
Ditto iS and SS.
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Why don't you pay us a monthly salary? The commissions thing no longer makes sense. Give me a salary for every x photos and sell them however you want.
I had a private speaking few years ago. Yes, some agencies tried to have photographers on a payroll. I don't know the further evolution, but these people were like "contributors".
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Wonder what Adobe's marketing spend is vs what they stand to make from this move. Wonder what the cost of all this ill will and tarnishing of the brand in the creative community is worth? Be interesting to know.
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I'm trying to find the positive aspects of this, if there are any.
Try "Adobe will make more money"?
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I'm trying to find the positive aspects of this, if there are any.
Try "Adobe will make more money"?
That's obvious. Mat willl probably get a fair raise and a decent bonus too. No need to do microstock anymore...
Just joking, Mat is one of the good guys in this business! :)
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[/quote]
Just joking, Mat is one of the good guys in this business! :)
[/quote]
Without ever meeting Mat he seems like a very nice person and positive by nature... I very much enjoy and appreciate his presence on this forum.
... but do not forget he is still the Contributor Service Associate under employ for Adobe Stock and he too has his priorities and responsibilities like spinning this 'exciting' news off as rainbows and unicorns.
A few other agencies in the past did the very same thing with an almost cult like following. It works.
Trauma bonding 101.
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blahblah
anyhow, there soon will not be much
old-time-contributor and new-contributors with latest topical concept
because cost covering producing isnt possible anymore.
(yes - flooding of vacation and leisure pics will continue)
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People who used to steal our stuffs from pirated sites will soon become a customer
what are you smoking?
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So do we know when this will begin?
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Adobe might be better out of the stock photo business. I presume their main business is software. If stock image prices continue to plummet, fewer photographers will need adobe software. A calculated gamble on their part, alienating their software buyers.
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Microstock is no longer a viable professional option for 99% of contributors. If you live in a cheap country it might work for you a little longer...
No, not anymore. After the Shutterstock's change, microstock has immediately become a part-time job for most contributors even in "cheap" countries.
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I unsubscribe yesterday.
i had all apps but i was just using it for after effects. I find Davinci real better for editing.
But now I am going to try Fusion. it seems very good, its free and it's more used here for commercials and movies.
I think there is no point of spending 36,89 € a month when i can get better for free now.
starting cut somewhere.
love you too adobe :-)
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*steaming pile of poop*💩 :( Its a good thing I have some other skills to take advantage of. Sigh.....
And I to think I kindly did a survey not long a go.
Shame that artists are always treated as the "toilet paper" of the industry instead of fine paper. We are not a dime a dozen.
Anyways those companies that live by greed and individuals likewise will have that back fire on then sooner or later. They are just shooting themselves in the foot.
A real same. :( *shakes head*🤦♀️
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In a few years ... ist there a chance to get $0,00001 Sales?
I guess there is no accounting program dealing with this small numbers.
Its not the case that i have to deal with this small numbers now.
But in a few years with 600 Sales for $0,00001 each. I will need an update for the accounting program.
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I just informed Wirestock about it - I even had to write them about other things anyway. And I told them: Who knows, maybe Adobe allows Wirestock to opt out from that crap new idea? If yes: Wirestock might get many new contributors, who upload via wirestock instead of uploading themselves! Maybe deleting all images and upload via wirestock again to get fair prices from Adobe, which would be still higher with the 15% cut from wirestock.
AAAAH! ADOBE! AT LEASST we all know it but did not want to believe ourselves.
Dreamstime is for sure the next, but until then maybe our new favourite?
What is left?
As already often mentioned:
We should ALL close our accounts everywhere (Yay, SS, is, Adobe,123, Deposit, ...
and only sell on Alamy (RM without private use), Zoonar (take care on which partners there!), Photocase, and Pond5!
Then we can decide:
Best photos as explained above.
Typical stockphotos we do not really care about - to normal, nothing special: Still upload to the devils like SS and so on.
Customers then must search for the good photos on the fair agencies and on all others they will only find that crap normal photos - nothing special.
I really do not know, why we are not doing it!?
After Istock/Getty, shutterstock and NOW ADOBE:
What else do we need to wake up?
LETs SHOCK them all by leaving that unfair agencies!
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I unsubscribe yesterday.
i had all apps but i was just using it for after effects. I find Davinci real better for editing.
But now I am going to try Fusion. it seems very good, its free and it's more used here for commercials and movies.
I think there is no point of spending 36,89 € a month when i can get better for free now.
starting cut somewhere.
love you too adobe :-)
Capture One on trial here. It seems that now is the right time to stop using Creative Cloud. I certainly won't miss it. Thank you Adobe!
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LETs SHOCK them all by leaving that unfair agencies!
'
Like everyone 'shocked' Shutterstock? Yeah, I bet they're still reeling from the less than 1% of their content that was removed (and replaced within a week) and the almost trebling of their share price.
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LETs SHOCK them all by leaving that unfair agencies!
'
Like everyone 'shocked' Shutterstock? Yeah, I bet they're still reeling from the less than 1% of their content that was removed (and replaced within a week) and the almost trebling of their share price.
But we do have a choice of what software to use. Premiere or Da Vinci? Photoshop, Illustrator or Affinity?
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As graphic designer, I can't use another software, but I happily started deleting images I like best. Not to shock them, but because my dignity. Maybe I would wait and see if it was just change in earnings, but I won't give my work under extended license for cents or couple of dollars, no chance.
I hope that other contributors will do same thing, if not immediately, then after same time. It seems they prefer premium images anyway, so be it.
Thanks Adobe for helping me get rid of my stupid microstock addiction! Shutterstock started it, but you definitely finished it.
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As graphic designer, I can't use another software, but I happily started deleting images I like best. Not to shock them, but because my dignity. Maybe I would wait and see if it was just change in earnings, but I won't give my work under extended license for cents or couple of dollars, no chance.
I hope that other contributors will do same thing, if not immediately, than after same time. It seems they prefer premium images anyway, so be it.
Thanks Adobe for helping me get rid of my stupid microstock addiction! Shutterstock started it, but you definitely finished it.
Actually you can if you choose to. My long time graphic designer friend dropped Adobe for Affinity and loves the savings. He introduced my wife to Affinity and she too loves the savings and they both still design.
As mentioned above I dropped Premiere for Da Vinci. The program does more than I need or even what I am capable of in editing and the monthly/annual savings is noted.
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Actually you can if you choose to. My long time graphic designer friend dropped Adobe for Affinity and loves the savings. He introduced my wife to Affinity and she too loves the savings and they both still design.
As mentioned above I dropped Premiere for Da Vinci. The program does more than I need or even what I am capable of in editing and the monthly/annual savings is noted.
When I started doing video a few years ago, I checked out both Adobe's Premiere and Apple's Final Cut Pro.
Ultimately, I chose Final Cut Pro, because it was an old-fashioned one-and-done purchase (like Photoshop used to be), not an annual subscription. I've never regretted that decision. And I still do really like FCP.
Of course, I've since become rather fond of the free Photoshop/Lightroom combo that Adobe has been giving me in exchange for my meeting their sales requirements for that benefit.
It remains to be seen if I'll continue to meet those requirements going forward.
Nothing I've read here has made me any less disappointed in Adobe Stock than when Mat first dropped this exciting news on us.
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Actually you can if you choose to. My long time graphic designer friend dropped Adobe for Affinity and loves the savings. He introduced my wife to Affinity and she too loves the savings and they both still design.
As mentioned above I dropped Premiere for Da Vinci. The program does more than I need or even what I am capable of in editing and the monthly/annual savings is noted.
My biggest clients have CC subscription, we are sending files to each other all the time. So I really can't.
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Many people are changing to Affinity.
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Lina, I am sorry to ear your case. Probably you need to be in the same "page" as them.
Anyway just let you know that you can import psd files into Affinity and also convert to be open in photoshop.
There are tutorials around internet and youtube that can help you with that.
Oh! One other thing... Affinity is now 27,99€/lifetime but you can try it for free too.
Maybe you can see if this can work for you.
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Funny how things work sometimes, but just tonight (a Saturday night), I got an email notice of a 60% royalty payment from Pond 5 for one of my exclusive videos there.
That one payment is more than I've been getting from Adobe Stock in a couple of months.
So, hey, that quickly improved my attitude toward microstock. A lot! :D
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Funny how things work sometimes, but just tonight (a Saturday night), I got an email notice of a 60% royalty payment from Pond 5 for one of my exclusive videos there.
That one payment is more than I've been getting from Adobe Stock in a couple of months.
So, hey, that quickly improved my attitude toward microstock. A lot! :D
Congratulations! :)
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Funny how things work sometimes, but just tonight (a Saturday night), I got an email notice of a 60% royalty payment from Pond 5 for one of my exclusive videos there.
That one payment is more than I've been getting from Adobe Stock in a couple of months.
So, hey, that quickly improved my attitude toward microstock. A lot! :D
Congratulations! :)
Thank you!
It's nice to have a timely reminder that there are a variety of photo outlets out there, and that it's best not to get too attached to any one of them.
Also, I hadn't heard from Pond 5 in a while, so… good to see that it's still alive and kicking. ;)
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LETs SHOCK them all by leaving that unfair agencies!
'
Like everyone 'shocked' Shutterstock? Yeah, I bet they're still reeling from the less than 1% of their content that was removed (and replaced within a week) and the almost trebling of their share price.
But we do have a choice of what software to use. Premiere or Da Vinci? Photoshop, Illustrator or Affinity?
For Lightroom Luminar is a good alternative IF it runs smoothly on your computer. Sadly a lot of people are reporting technical problems with it. It was slow and used to crash quite often for me too when I used my older computer, but since it was overdo to be replaced and I have a new one, Luminar is now running smoothly. There is a free trial available, so to everyone looking into ditching Adobe products I recommend trying it out.
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The microstock will shrink and shrink into atomstock
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Lina, I am sorry to ear your case. Probably you need to be in the same "page" as them.
Anyway just let you know that you can import psd files into Affinity and also convert to be open in photoshop.
There are tutorials around internet and youtube that can help you with that.
Oh! One other thing... Affinity is now 27,99€/lifetime but you can try it for free too.
Maybe you can see if this can work for you.
Thank you for trying to help! :) I have Affinity Photo and Designer. Great software, only bad thing is that Affinity Photo doesn't support smart objects, at least it didn't last time I checked.
I am working mostly in InDesign. As far as I know, Affinity Publisher is still not on same level as InDesign and I am afraid to even think of all issues that could happen in conversion. And yes, I have to be on same page with my client so I can't work in other software and make conversions all the time.
It's OK, at least Adobe graciously allowed us to buy web subscription from beginning of this year, until now in my country we had only option to buy "For Teams" version which is expensive as hell (around 550$ for single app/year).
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The microstock will shrink and shrink into atomstock
Within a few years we're all gonna need CERN's particle accelerator to find out about our earnings.
Agencies claim they are there, yet still to be discovered by the contributors.
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Has anyone actually seen a sale or payment or is this all pages of guesses and knee jerk reactions? No I don't expect I'll be "excited" and happy when I do, but people closing accounts, removing images and we haven't seen one bit of how much we actually will or won't get?
To alter slightly: "Microstock is no longer a viable professional option for 98% of contributors." And hasn't been for some years. Why is this a surprise?
Many people are changing to Affinity.
And liking it. I have my free CC photo subscription and I might not activate it.
So let me join the doom and gloom, hand wringing and misery. Adobe will buy Affinity Software and shut it down, as that will make them much more than it costs. ;D
1) Please wait for the first payments, then react, based on what actually happens?
2) For people who are already removing their best images, don't come back and tell us how your income and sales have dropped. You did that yourself.
3) Agencies are not our friends, (not partners, not associates, not a charity) they are a business for their own profit.
I used to nod and agree when people called this Micropayment Stock. Then things got worse and worse, and now we are supplying NanoPayment NanoStock, which is 1 Billionth of a whole. iStock has a claim 2 cent minimum, but somehow blows smoke... as the Connect sales are thousandths of a cent in some cases. SS has a 10¢ minimum which seems to be almost every sale. Video? I don't know I removed all mine years ago.
What did anyone expect? As the dominoes fall, one by one, tumbling the next one, the next agency to fall, did anyone actually think Abode would be a brick in the path and stop the progressive diminishing of payments that's everywhere? Oh yeah, the usual "this won't happen to me, it only happens to other people."
Microstock Is Dead, stop looking for the next big thing or some comeback or something new and improved that gives us more money. It's over, time to move on and find something else.
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All valid points above, however there will be a point where major categories of saleable stock will become unavailable in the microstock world as payments approach "0". Have a look at the sites that are now literally not paying contributors anything. Yes, people still upload to these sites, but the content is pretty much devoid of major categories of stock...for example business people and scenarios.
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Has anyone actually seen a sale or payment
Who knows? As those sales cannot be distinguished from other "custom" sales (those have been there a long time already...), we just can't tell...
At least I haven't (yet) seen anything suspiciously low.
I can't imagine that this will have any positive impact.
How big the negative impact will be? Time will tell.
I'll do the same as I did with Shutterstock: Wait and see what happens and decide when I see results.
With Shutterstock it was bad enough that I deactivated everything after roughly six weeks.
Let's see how this one goes...
If I see massive amounts of tiny sales coming in (and have to assume an EL being granted for those), the likely outcome is I'll be gone from Adobe as well.
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Reading through, "33% royalties on the Adobe Stock revenue from Pro Edition downloads" is a much better deal than SS's pathetic percentage on used downloads (so an absolute BS percentage they can change whenever they like by changing download limits on packages) and IS's awful partner sales for pennies.
But, I'd like to see a minimum per dl, which would also motivate AS to police abuse of accounts to download huge amounts of content. AS/ FL is historically not good at that kind of thing (e.g. copyright infringement of artists work on the site) so I would have to see a structural reason for them to care rather than taking it on trust that they will.
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All valid points above, however there will be a point where major categories of saleable stock will become unavailable in the microstock world as payments approach "0". Have a look at the sites that are now literally not paying contributors anything. Yes, people still upload to these sites, but the content is pretty much devoid of major categories of stock...for example business people and scenarios.
True, and maybe there is some hope that products that involve production, models, locations and professional qualities, will disappear from Microstock, except old stale uploads? Or people who actually have good, well thought out, unique images, will find a way to market elsewhere and Microstock will just be like the clearance section at Walmart.
Here's my official personal position about this change, just in case it's lost in the rest I wrote.
I'm in wait and see mode, look before you leap? I'll change nothing until I see an actual reason to change.
This is in opposition to "Lets hang them now and maybe next month have a fair trial to decide if it's as bad we suspected."
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Don't these agencies realize the quality of stock photography will diminish greatly if photographers are only earning 10 cents an image which includes enhanced/extended licensing? Even the "new/pumped up generation" would probably not stay long at that royalty ...
Also, inflation is coming. They are reducing our pay while the cost of everything is going up.
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Don't these agencies realize the quality of stock photography will diminish greatly if photographers are only earning 10 cents an image which includes enhanced/extended licensing? Even the "new/pumped up generation" would probably not stay long at that royalty ...
Also, inflation is coming. They are reducing our pay while the cost of everything is going up.
Seems many publicly owned businesses are short term focused these days....don't necessarily care about the long haul. The execs will be doing something else by then.
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Don't these agencies realize the quality of stock photography will diminish greatly if photographers are only earning 10 cents an image which includes enhanced/extended licensing? Even the "new/pumped up generation" would probably not stay long at that royalty ...
Also, inflation is coming. They are reducing our pay while the cost of everything is going up.
They don't care and there are plenty of fools scrambling to get their images on these sites for pennies.
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Has anyone actually seen a sale or payment or is this all pages of guesses and knee jerk reactions? No I don't expect I'll be "excited" and happy when I do, but people closing accounts, removing images and we haven't seen one bit of how much we actually will or won't get?
To alter slightly: "Microstock is no longer a viable professional option for 98% of contributors." And hasn't been for some years. Why is this a surprise?
You are right Pete, we don't know the impact yet. And if the claim of Matt is right - Adobe aiming for additional, new customers who need big volumes - and regular plans remain untouched and none of those customers jump to the unlimited plan, than the effect on your Adobe Stock earnings might even be positive. Already quite some "if's"
But your RDP will go down. And that's point. Again a devaluation of content.
Sure, if customers shift from Getty or Shutterstock to Adobe, those 0,02$ at Getty or 0,1$ at Shutterstock commissions might be worth 0,15$ or 0,25$ at Adobe. Maybe. Still pennies though. Or 0,01$, also possible. We don't know.
And that's why people get mad.
No transparency. Hope for the best while you are being played.
No control for the contributor on opting out content for subscription plans or partnerships. I know, they all do that, and I still find that a real d*ck move.
And also, no alternative anymore, as Adobe was more or less the last one standing in microstockworld.
Everyone has seen similar moves by agencies too many times before. Did it ever turn out positive in recent history?
I don't need to remind you the SS debacle a year ago. Some even claimed "I actually think my earnings will go up by this"
Meanwhile we know they didn't, unless you worked really harder better faster stronger. 8)
So yeah, against one's better judgement: let's see how it plays out.
Deep down we already know: "exciting". :o
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And that's why people get mad.
No transparency. Hope for the best while you are being played.
No control for the contributor on opting out content for subscription plans or partnerships. I know, they all do that, and I still find that a real d*ck move.
And also, no alternative anymore, as Adobe was more or less the last one standing in microstockworld.
Everyone has seen similar moves by agencies too many times before. Did it ever turn out positive in recent history?
I don't need to remind you the SS debacle a year ago. Some even claimed "I actually think my earnings will go up by this"
Meanwhile we know they didn't, unless you worked really harder better faster stronger. 8)
So yeah, against one's better judgement: let's see how it plays out.
Deep down we already know: "exciting". :o
+100
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This "exciting" new plan has now been published, but is it already in use? I can't find any time-frame on when it will be introduced.
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bwahahahaaahahaaaaaaaa, there it is... and matt selling it as a good thing, no different from any of the other vultures
exciting news everyone !!!
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matt, since you have spent hours talking about this and you are monitoring the situation, can you give an example calculation of typical contributor with typical downloads for this new plan, so we can all see how this is going to benefit us, please, thanks.
not holding my breath for this one if you dont mind
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Just joking, Mat is one of the good guys in this business! :)
Without ever meeting Mat he seems like a very nice person and positive by nature... I very much enjoy and appreciate his presence on this forum.
... but do not forget he is still the Contributor Service Associate under employ for Adobe Stock and he too has his priorities and responsibilities like spinning this 'exciting' news off as rainbows and unicorns.
A few other agencies in the past did the very same thing with an almost cult like following. It works.
Trauma bonding 101.
he is a nasty back stabber as far as i know, during the whole dollar club fiasco with fotolia he was the one booting out fellow contribs for taking a stand, and he took that with him to adobe, and now he is happily defending another back stabbing event. make no mistake all these agency reps are rats, only working to increase their employers bottom line. ive been long enough in this business to know that they are literally all cut from the same tree
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Funny how things work sometimes, but just tonight (a Saturday night), I got an email notice of a 60% royalty payment from Pond 5 for one of my exclusive videos there.
That one payment is more than I've been getting from Adobe Stock in a couple of months.
So, hey, that quickly improved my attitude toward microstock. A lot! :D
Pond 5 also stabbed contribs in the back, but i guess one good sale makes you forgive and forget very quickly then
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he is a nasty back stabber as far as i know, during the whole dollar club fiasco with fotolia he was the one booting out fellow contribs for taking a stand, and he took that with him to adobe, and now he is happily defending another back stabbing event. make no mistake all these agency reps are rats, only working to increase their employers bottom line. ive been long enough in this business to know that they are literally all cut from the same tree
I understand people want to be mad at someone rather than at something, but you are shooting the messenger here.
Sure. He preaches the word of his employer. What else did you expect?
At least he's reaching out to contributors on non official message boards like this, informs them and answers questions directly, within strict limitations of his role as an employee of the agency that pays him to do so. I don't see other agencies doing that, and certainly not on this level. So give the guy a break, will ya. I'm sure his personal opinion doesn't always match the strategy, policies or developments he's supposed to promote.
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dont drink the kool aid - he used to be a contributor but chose to turn to the dark side, knowing what agencies cook up to screw over contribs
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dont drink the kool aid - he used to be a contributor but chose to turn to the dark side, knowing what agencies cook up to screw over contribs
It's not the "agencies". It's the market.
There are too many of us, everyone's an artist these days, we are generating way too much content and that makes the offer exceeding the demand. By far.
So why are people surprised that the prices are going down? Beats me! ::)
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Has anyone actually seen a sale or payment or is this all pages of guesses and knee jerk reactions? No I don't expect I'll be "excited" and happy when I do, but people closing accounts, removing images and we haven't seen one bit of how much we actually will or won't get?
To alter slightly: "Microstock is no longer a viable professional option for 98% of contributors." And hasn't been for some years. Why is this a surprise?
You are right Pete, we don't know the impact yet. And if the claim of Matt is right - Adobe aiming for additional, new customers who need big volumes - and regular plans remain untouched and none of those customers jump to the unlimited plan, than the effect on your Adobe Stock earnings might even be positive. Already quite some "if's"
But your RDP will go down. And that's point. Again a devaluation of content.
Sure, if customers shift from Getty or Shutterstock to Adobe, those 0,02$ at Getty or 0,1$ at Shutterstock commissions might be worth 0,15$ or 0,25$ at Adobe. Maybe. Still pennies though. Or 0,01$, also possible. We don't know.
And that's why people get mad.
No transparency. Hope for the best while you are being played.
No control for the contributor on opting out content for subscription plans or partnerships. I know, they all do that, and I still find that a real d*ck move.
And also, no alternative anymore, as Adobe was more or less the last one standing in microstockworld.
Everyone has seen similar moves by agencies too many times before. Did it ever turn out positive in recent history?
I don't need to remind you the SS debacle a year ago. Some even claimed "I actually think my earnings will go up by this"
Meanwhile we know they didn't, unless you worked really harder better faster stronger. 8)
So yeah, against one's better judgement: let's see how it plays out.
Deep down we already know: "exciting". :o
I can't disagree with any of what you wrote. I expect that RPD will go down. I don't see anything that we have seen in history that says, customers will change or this will change our sales volume. We've seen this line over and over about attracting customers. None of that means we'll make more, if they do come to Adobe.
The person who said SS changes last year will increase income was Stan. (I didn't believe him then and now most of us know better.) Some people are making more at SS with the new system. A small minority, and I'm sure not one of that group.
Yeah, just waiting for the exciting part to begin. :-\
My only point is, wait and see. This has been since the first news from IS that they had plans to change the search. Two months before it went into effect, people were already seeing sales drops. ??? Over and over, one of the agencies will announce some future change and before it's activated, some contributors are already feeling the negative effect. This one is no different. Anyone get one of these sales yet? When did it start?
If I was guessing and predicting, based on past events, I'd say, we'll make less.
(https://i.postimg.cc/6pmkhL4W/Pete-Sorcerer-Gnome-Charms.jpg)
But I don't understand reacting, accusing, calling names and attacking, until we see what really changed and how it actually effects us.
They don't care and there are plenty of fools scrambling to get their images on these sites for pennies.
That's right. Leaving changes nothing, staying changes nothing, removing best images, changes nothing except guaranteeing I'd make less. "They" don't really care about rewards for loyalty, upload volume or quality, and if any agency claims they did, that's a decade ago. Everything now is, how little can they pay us and how much volume can they turn, to make the most off the small percentages that are left.
Here's the way things have gone, from cuts for commissions unsustainable to unlimited downloads for minimal commission.
(https://i.postimg.cc/8zC5bZhk/truth-is-out-there-fork.jpg)
I think too many people can't read what I write without letting their emotional reaction, interfere with the facts and logical point.
Wait and see, let it play out, then decide.
Why is there anyone left who cares? Maybe that's why I'm not upset or angry in advance of the change. We've already been beat down to nothing and anyone who actually cares and wants income or needs the money, should have left and found something else years ago.
Microstock is not the answer, it's more like an incurable disease. At the very least, a terrible addiction that costs more than any future rewards for most people?
The free CC subscription for a small amount of effort and downloads is a nice reward that Adobe gave us. I appreciate that thoughtful offer.
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I find this entire thing unsurprising. If it works out to our benefit, then wonderful. But evidence from other agency actions (from many places) across the board suggest otherwise. Pete is right, wait and see, but I am not hopeful.
As a mental health option (not kidding), I suggest to the long haulers (and anyone else) to consider places like Wirestock. They may take a cut, but they add all agency earnings together, making it way easier to reach payout. Plus I no longer check various agencies which truly does ease my stress levels. Pete has a referral link to them, as do I and a few others here. You can upload and forget about all of this. There are other pros and cons to consider as well.
Finally, for those of you who are ditching Photoshop or CC, just a reminder that to remove ALL of the AB stuff from your computers, you will need to do a lot more than simply uninstalling. Microsoft has a tool called "Autoruns" so that you can see all the stuff that is added and starts in the background, and cannot be removed easily. It is truly disturbing.
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I find this entire thing unsurprising. If it works out to our benefit, then wonderful. But evidence from other agency actions (from many places) across the board suggest otherwise. Pete is right, wait and see, but I am not hopeful.
As a mental health option (not kidding), I suggest to the long haulers (and anyone else) to consider places like Wirestock. They may take a cut, but they add all agency earnings together, making it way easier to reach payout. Plus I no longer check various agencies which truly does ease my stress levels. Pete has a referral link to them, as do I and a few others here. You can upload and forget about all of this. There are other pros and cons to consider as well.
Finally, for those of you who are ditching Photoshop or CC, just a reminder that to remove ALL of the AB stuff from your computers, you will need to do a lot more than simply uninstalling. Microsoft has a tool called "Autoruns" so that you can see all the stuff that is added and starts in the background, and cannot be removed easily. It is truly disturbing.
Welcome back. 8) I'm not going to stump my link, just there in case someone wants to play and try them. I need the 2 cents... ::)
For removing software, another one I've found useful and free is iObit uninstaller, https://www.iobit.com/en/advanceduninstaller.php (https://www.iobit.com/en/advanceduninstaller.php) that seems to do a good search of the system and the Registry for leftovers. You are right, sometimes Adobe software, just like Microsoft, is almost invasive and can be very difficult to get off the system. My worst was trying to get rid of PDF Architect. After it was removed, I still got update notices, on my computer, not emails.
I'm still happy with Elements but I do have Affinity on trial. I'm kind of stuck on what I know and what works. Change is difficult for Seniors.
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Welcome back. 8) I'm not going to stump my link, just there in case someone wants to play and try them. I need the 2 cents... ::)
For removing software, another one I've found useful and free is iObit uninstaller, https://www.iobit.com/en/advanceduninstaller.php (https://www.iobit.com/en/advanceduninstaller.php) that seems to do a good search of the system and the Registry for leftovers. You are right, sometimes Adobe software, just like Microsoft, is almost invasive and can be very difficult to get off the system. My worst was trying to get rid of PDF Architect. After it was removed, I still got update notices, on my computer, not emails.
I'm still happy with Elements but I do have Affinity on trial. I'm kind of stuck on what I know and what works. Change is difficult for Seniors.
Meh, stump it I say, everyone else is making money of us creatives, why not do the same.
And thank you, I take breaks for, as mentioned above, my own mental health. I am argumentative apparently (I don't believe it! lol) so short breaks help.
Affinity is awesome, I use it all the time. The learning curve isn't too steep even for me.
As for uninstalling, I was shocked when I had cancelled my subscription to PS and LR a couple years back, and then found out there was program after program that still started up every single time I turned on my computer. I was no longer a customer, so I have always wondered what info this stuff gathers. Perhaps Matt can speak to that?
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If I understand what Matt says correctly, they want to leave the “existing customer base” alone and offer this unlimited nightmare only to new potential customers.
So, best case scenario: my download numbers go way up, because the new customers with the unlimited plans download unlimited images on top of my normal downloads. My RPD, meanwhile, goes down, because I make mostly zero from these unlimited plans. All in all, my bottom line stays about the same, and I’ll try my best to forget that every one of those mostly-zero-money downloads is someone hoovering up extended licenses of my images…
Worst case scenario: Adobe falls in love with the unlimited disease and extends it to existing customers. And after that there are no roses anymore. Not for anyone.
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Funny how things work sometimes, but just tonight (a Saturday night), I got an email notice of a 60% royalty payment from Pond 5 for one of my exclusive videos there.
That one payment is more than I've been getting from Adobe Stock in a couple of months.
So, hey, that quickly improved my attitude toward microstock. A lot! :D
Pond 5 also stabbed contribs in the back, but i guess one good sale makes you forgive and forget very quickly then
No, actually one good sale doesn't make me forgive and forget anything.
But it also doesn't hurt to have something lift one's spirits in tough times, does it?
Do you think we're all better off to be angry and grim and spitting mad about our poor, miserable, sorry lot in life?
I've lived long enough to know that life is waaay too short to get fighting mad over everything that happens to me.
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Don't these agencies realize the quality of stock photography will diminish greatly if photographers are only earning 10 cents an image which includes enhanced/extended licensing? Even the "new/pumped up generation" would probably not stay long at that royalty ...
Also, inflation is coming. They are reducing our pay while the cost of everything is going up.
'
I think they've realized quite the opposite. They can continue decreasing royalties and new contributors easily fill any losses. Unsplash has proven there is no shortage of gullible people who are willing to give free work away to ruthless businesspeople posing as philanthropists. They will keep decreasing royalties until they see a negative impact and there doesn't seem to be any end in sight.
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I think they've realized quite the opposite. They can continue decreasing royalties and new contributors easily fill any losses. Unsplash has proven there is no shortage of gullible people who are willing to give free work away to ruthless businesspeople posing as philanthropists. They will keep decreasing royalties until they see a negative impact and there doesn't seem to be any end in sight.
Good point. You are right ... Unsplash has proven this.
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As a mental health option (not kidding), I suggest to the long haulers (and anyone else) to consider places like Wirestock. They may take a cut,
Another middleman taking a cut? No thanks. I don't do a whole lot of agency checking anymore, anyway, so I don't see the use for Wirestock doing 'the work' for me.
It's yet another business model trying to take a piece of the already small pie. But that's just me.
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Another middleman taking a cut? No thanks. I don't do a whole lot of agency checking anymore, anyway, so I don't see the use for Wirestock doing 'the work' for me.
It's yet another business model trying to take a piece of the already small pie. But that's just me.
Yup. As I said, pros and cons to it. Its not for everyone. :) For those who want to "fire and forget" it works quite well.
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Funny how things work sometimes, but just tonight (a Saturday night), I got an email notice of a 60% royalty payment from Pond 5 for one of my exclusive videos there.
That one payment is more than I've been getting from Adobe Stock in a couple of months.
So, hey, that quickly improved my attitude toward microstock. A lot! :D
Pond 5 also stabbed contribs in the back, but i guess one good sale makes you forgive and forget very quickly then
No, actually one good sale doesn't make me forgive and forget anything.
But it also doesn't hurt to have something lift one's spirits in tough times, does it?
Do you think we're all better off to be angry and grim and spitting mad about our poor, miserable, sorry lot in life?
I've lived long enough to know that life is waaay too short to get fighting mad over everything that happens to me.
Good thoughts and yes, I'll wait until they start reporting minimal credits and commissions, THEN I'll get hopping angry. ;D
Waiting to see, being an optimist, maybe it won't be so bad? The realist side says, I've seen these plans before and they never mean anything good for us.
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The realist side says, I've seen these plans before and they never mean anything good for us.
This is what my philosophy is for agency initiatives these days.
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This hardly baffles me.
There are always school bullies.
Always were, always will be.
Tyrants and people who abuse their power.
That's all this really is.
But, it takes a tiny speck of light to up brighten up a dark room.
All it takes is for one small decent agency to rise,
Envato (was called Eden back then) uprising was due to the mistreatment of iStock towards contributors.
Collis, said it himself in an interview.
Then they did the same with their "Elements" ,
and now their forums are filled with complaints.
They are also increasing the size of their "Unlimited Downloads" every month.
They keep biting from their own profits and shooting themselves in the foot.
Staff is leaving left and right, contributors pulling their goods out of it every day.
So don't worry Mat or Adobe, just like Envato, Karma will get you too.
We aren't hating, we just letting you know -> this move will have repercussions.
No being is superior to the law of karma, and neither are you.
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Just today I wanted to contact Adobe again, because I want to close my account after one year with NO SALES. But yes, already many months most of my images I uploaded to Adobe via wirestock and got some sales there.
But before I even could start writing Adobe about closing my personal account, I saw that I got an email from adobe: MY FIRST SALE on my personal account. RPD 23 Cent!!!!! Not 33 or something like that.
Hey, never get a sale, but now seems to be I got the first sale under new payment - see exciting announcement!
23 Cent is much more than I expected, but still not the 33 garant Cent from the PAST. YES! It starts now.
But that does not change my mind/decission: I will close my account and upload them to wirestock. But I am still curoius if I should leave Adobe totally now - even not submit to Adobe via wirestock????? Wirestock told me already, that they fall under the same payment announcement like every contributor. Lets see 1 or 2 more month. Then I might ask wirestock to delete all my images on Adobe there too.
Am I right!
The new chance for that bad sellers on adobe! Wow! I am happy!
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Just today I wanted to contact Adobe again, because I want to close my account after one year with NO SALES. But yes, already many months most of my images I uploaded to Adobe via wirestock and got some sales there.
But before I even could start writing Adobe about closing my personal account, I saw that I got an email from adobe: MY FIRST SALE on my personal account. RPD 23 Cent!!!!! Not 33 or something like that.
Hey, never get a sale, but now seems to be I got the first sale under new payment - see exciting announcement!
23 Cent is much more than I expected, but still not the 33 garant Cent from the PAST. YES! It starts now.
But that does not change my mind/decission: I will close my account and upload them to wirestock. But I am still curoius if I should leave Adobe totally now - even not submit to Adobe via wirestock????? Wirestock told me already, that they fall under the same payment announcement like every contributor. Lets see 1 or 2 more month. Then I might ask wirestock to delete all my images on Adobe there too.
Am I right!
The new chance for that bad sellers on adobe! Wow! I am happy!
Hi @Kall3bu,
This is likely a tax form issue in your account with maximum deductions withheld from a traditional subscription minimum payment. Send me an email with your Adobe ID and the image number and I'll take a look. If you decide you do want to close your account, I can assist you with that also.
Email: [email protected]
Thanks,
Mat
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Hi Mat,
THAT could be indeed the reason! I was not thinking about it.
I contacted Adobe support already, so I guess everything will get fixed via them. But thx for your help offer.
Many contributors are lookin forward to the exciting new penny sales. When can we expect the first results?
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Mat, when did this get rolled out, started? I've seen earnings tank at AS and just wondering if this is the reason. If this is the cause and this new earning level will continue then it looks like this will be an end for me.
I'm sort of hoping I've read this wrong and that AS hasn't basically got rid of higher value sales and replaced them with £0.30 ones. I normally get quite a few of the larger ones but nothing over the last 10-14 days. Those larger value sales were the only thing that makes it possible to continue supplying AS.
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Mat, when did this get rolled out, started? I've seen earnings tank at AS and just wondering if this is the reason. If this is the cause and this new earning level will continue then it looks like this will be an end for me.
I'm sort of hoping I've read this wrong and that AS hasn't basically got rid of higher value sales and replaced them with £0.30 ones. I normally get quite a few of the larger ones but nothing over the last 10-14 days. Those larger value sales were the only thing that makes it possible to continue supplying AS.
I suspect the drop could have more to do with the regional changes with the algorithm, I would also like to hear from Matt when we should see the first sales from the new scheme
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Mat cannot answer to these questions right now. Or with his words: I have no information about this to share.
So, instead of telling that each time, he did it only very few time and now like adobe waiting what happens.
To give NO answer IS ALSO an answer!
So expecting the worst could be very close to the real.
regions WERE open to every one BEFORE that changes! I did ranking searches of my photos BEFORE they change it. (I am from Indonesia) So, they closed it to many regions and open slowly with best images which they offer for free, if they pay for any Adobe software.
NEW photos: Not worth to upload anymore - no chance to get appear, because only best seller always appear in front. Even customer CANNOT ANYMORE search for new content, they have to take what Adobe offers them, even Adobe has much more to offer.
But not only the normal contributors got treated that bad: From the best sellers they offer them for free as explained above.
As we all know: Adobe never been a stockphoto site! They want to sell their software! And who buys it get free stockphotos from them.
Where the contributors have there benefit from it? Nowhere anymore!
I already nearly deleted all my images on Adobe and will close my account soon.
If principles like discriminating foreign countries (mostly Moslems), then there is something wrong in Adobes world. And we have to decide if we want to support them in that new way or not.
I am lucky that I have not that best seller images, so I will not loose much.
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Very bland FAQs that gives us no idea what we may earn from this plan. I am assuming it will be less than normal though........
Earnings from Pro Edition are labeled ‘Custom’ on your earnings page in the Contributor Portal. Note, Enterprise licenses are also labeled ‘Custom’ so it is not possible to filter for just Pro Edition payouts.
Has anyone else looked at their custom earnings to see how this plan worked out?
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Unpopular opinion here, so I expect a lot of downvote. But I'll still chip in.
I actually like this move from Adobe. This move is very different from royalty cut like what other agencies did recently. What Adobe did here is pulling in new customers by offering better things. I would rather these customers getting cheaply from Adobe then stealing our stuffs from pirated site. This is very similar move by Canva who at the end double your earnings by offering unlimited download. They did it with success, and I am very surprised.
Sad to say this, but the unlimited download thing is inevitable. If Adobe don't offer unlimited, others agencies will, and that would make Adobe less relevance. If old-time-contributor like you and me don't submit to unlimited agencies, other new-contributors will submit. This is not something we can stop even if we wanted to. Supply over demand, what can I say more?
So, Mat Hayward, I wish Adobe can prove many of us wrong, and show us our improved earnings in near future :)
I hope you are right...
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...Has anyone else looked at their custom earnings to see how this plan worked out?
I have been tracking this - as best I can given the absence of any stats tools that let you separate these details out. I was concerned I'd see amounts below 38 cents, the prior floor for subscription sales. I haven't seen any custom sales below 38 cents and although the volume of higher-value custom sales - above $3.30 - has decreased.
You can see a rough assessment in an earlier post I made:
https://www.microstockgroup.com/fotolia-com/adobe-stock-sales-are-so-slow-this-days/msg567518/#msg567518 (https://www.microstockgroup.com/fotolia-com/adobe-stock-sales-are-so-slow-this-days/msg567518/#msg567518)
Bottom line is that I'm happy that the floor didn't drop out on prices for custom sales, although there's none of the upside that I used to see at Shutterstock with SODs - $90 - $120 royalties on some sales. Mind you, I might not still see those at SS either (I'm no longer there).
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...Has anyone else looked at their custom earnings to see how this plan worked out?
I have been tracking this - as best I can given the absence of any stats tools that let you separate these details out. I was concerned I'd see amounts below 38 cents, the prior floor for subscription sales. I haven't seen any custom sales below 38 cents and although the volume of higher-value custom sales - above $3.30 - has decreased.
You can see a rough assessment in an earlier post I made:
https://www.microstockgroup.com/fotolia-com/adobe-stock-sales-are-so-slow-this-days/msg567518/#msg567518 (https://www.microstockgroup.com/fotolia-com/adobe-stock-sales-are-so-slow-this-days/msg567518/#msg567518)
Bottom line is that I'm happy that the floor didn't drop out on prices for custom sales, although there's none of the upside that I used to see at Shutterstock with SODs - $90 - $120 royalties on some sales. Mind you, I might not still see those at SS either (I'm no longer there).
Thank you as always Jo Ann. It's nice to read answers from someone who collects data. I'm just going to add that from personal observation, since I've left my images up on SS, SODs, ELs and higher price downloads for me, have dropped and disappeared at SS.
If the question from Diana was Adobe, I haven't seen a drop, and I do see some odd and increasing, Custom sales which I wouldn't expect to be the case? I'd have to go back and search year by year, before the announcement and then after, for exact numbers. Real data beats personal memory and observations, every time. :)
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...Has anyone else looked at their custom earnings to see how this plan worked out?
I have been tracking this - as best I can given the absence of any stats tools that let you separate these details out. I was concerned I'd see amounts below 38 cents, the prior floor for subscription sales. I haven't seen any custom sales below 38 cents and although the volume of higher-value custom sales - above $3.30 - has decreased.
You can see a rough assessment in an earlier post I made:
https://www.microstockgroup.com/fotolia-com/adobe-stock-sales-are-so-slow-this-days/msg567518/#msg567518 (https://www.microstockgroup.com/fotolia-com/adobe-stock-sales-are-so-slow-this-days/msg567518/#msg567518)
Bottom line is that I'm happy that the floor didn't drop out on prices for custom sales, although there's none of the upside that I used to see at Shutterstock with SODs - $90 - $120 royalties on some sales. Mind you, I might not still see those at SS either (I'm no longer there).
Hi Jo Anne I got a sale yesterday but it shows as subscription. Does Adobe indicate when it’s a extended license? I see subscription and custom only on my sales. (https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20211203/3033990412e32201d729f745acf24349.jpg)
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Extended licenses can be purchased a number of ways at Adobe stock so you won't always see "extended" in your stats. That looks like 33% of the buyer's price.
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Yes you are correct it is 33%, wish they would distinguish.