I checked and luckily they do seem to have "grandfathered" people in. I would have died loosing my emerald status and all my files going back to 1 credit! Especially with the Istock fiasco. That would have been a double whammy! I guess I'll be hitting saphire in about 5 years!

I hope you are right about the grandfathering.  I just checked and I am still emerald, although I fall short of the new 25,000 requirement. 

Because of doubling my prices Fotolia is on track to overtake istock as my top earning agency.  It would be a huge hit to see that progress lost. 

ETA:  Just checked their forums.  Yes, we are all grandfathered in at our current level.

Hi All,

 Well I have received a reply and this is defiantly their new direction. I myself am very disappointed by their choice. I approach these things from the basic stand point if something doesn't make sense " follow the Money " if you want to try to figure out someones motives for something that doesn't seem clear you just need to follow the money. So why would this be a financially rewarding choice by a company that has been moving up the ladder of Micro.

 One thought that came to me is maybe they are setting up to find a buyer. The higher their returns the better the company looks to a buyer on paper.(  This is purely speculation on my part and has in no way been substantiated by anyone affiliated with Fotolia ) There is always a reason why companies make big shifts like this. I always say, " If it doesn't make sense then you probably don't know the entire story ".

 Could it be that if you are exclusive at Fotolia you can set your own price point so even though they say this applies to both exclusives and non-exclusives the results are completely different. If Fotolia is making twice as much money by raising their rates to their buyers then why would they remove this opportunity. They and others have said when they hit Emerald they made almost twice as much money. The cost was passed on to the customer so not only was the photographer making more money so was Fotolia.

 Could this be a motivator to try and get people to go exclusive. You can set your price point. Is it a possible sale and they want to make their numbers look good. The problem here is they made a very big change without announcing it or trying to explain it before implementing it. This is poor business practice and I am very discourged with their choice.

AVAVA

Well , before making any new calculations , you may want to consider that this can happen again in the future.

I guess they build their pyramid structure , and they want to keep it  the same it looks at this stage.

Typical for this site.  *sigh*  Was Fotolia ever actually GOOD to contributors?  Or is that a part of our collective imagination?  Why do people bother?

Typical for this site.  *sigh*  Was Fotolia ever actually GOOD to contributors?  Or is that a part of our collective imagination?  Why do people bother?

I can recall a time about 2 years ago where it was pretty decent - that was prior to the V2 debacle. Now that they are rejecting photos on mass, and decided to unilaterally change the terms of their website, and by implication their contract with contributors **and not communicate the change** its pretty clear that they couldn't care less about contributors. Seems to me that there are a few power plays going on in the industry - with the changes to the IS best match hurting non-exclusives, and now this. Personally I was almost at silver... now almost 1/5 of the way there. Pretty crappy change if you ask me.

This is very very disappointing for me. I just need few days to reach gold (1000 DL) , but now I need to wait few more years.

Oh, I want to add another thought. Probably at Fotolia they were realizing that if too many people got to Gold and Emerald (thus increasing their prices) Fotolia would became sooner an 'expensive shop' compared to other agencies. Is that another possible explanation of the move?

regards,
Val.

Well , before making any new calculations , you may want to consider that this can happen again in the future.

I guess they build their pyramid structure , and they want to keep it  the same it looks at this stage.

Yes i agree next you reach 24999 Downloads they will push emerald to 50000. I'm 100% sure noone will come close to emerald in the next 12months (my personal calculation for my port is now three years). So whats the fuzz about this infinite collection if noone will reach emerald in the future

New changing after talking... but after silver, it's always hard...

I always loved ther way of communication - it's simply non-existing. Safes time for both parties ...

Not been a good year for me at FT....Subs,odd rejections,below par sales, and now this!

Bad of them to let this out without any announcement too. I'm way off moving up anyway so I wont be affected, but I feel sorry for those about to jump up a level.

All in all unfair treatment yet again from them!

I'm just amazed at Chad's "It's too easy to become successful, so we're making it harder" post on the yahoo group.

Yeah shameful

I'm just amazed at Chad's "It's too easy to become successful, so we're making it harder" post on the yahoo group.

Could you please show us the link to this statement.

Thanks.