Remember Fotolia advertising as the fair treatment agency when iS announced their rate cut. They didn't mention cutting rates two weeks after iS did back then. What effing hypocrisy!  Not that it surprises me. Fotolia was where the pay cutting all began.

Quote from: lagereek on January 20, 2011, 14:33

Im erasing over 1300 images over the weekend, so is another 5 to 8 Golds in Scandinavia, England and Germany. We will join up with IS.  Why??  well for starters, why set the bar at Emeralds? cheaper then Gold on the stock-market, also, you cant trust the game any more. FT, made that an infamnia, which means an impossibillity to remain.

We had time over for IS, given the fact they were the first ones, this however? no! no way, its upstart mentality.

It's a perfect domino effect for IS. IS cuts commissions, then others do the same and in the end more exclusive content falls into IS hands like ripe apples from a tree.

Quote from: djpadavona on January 20, 2011, 15:09

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on January 20, 2011, 12:29

Remember Fotolia advertising as the fair treatment agency when iS announced their rate cut. They didn't mention cutting rates two weeks after iS did back then. What effing hypocrisy!  Not that it surprises me. Fotolia was where the pay cutting all began.

I remember it well.  In fact it was the first thing I thought of when I heard FT cut commissions.  Isn't this the point where May Hayward shows up to tell us about how great FT is, and how we should be exclusive with them?

^^^ Hahaha..

 I was thinking the same thing.. He's pretty quiet.. As well as in the FT forum.. Gues he's at a loss for words at this point, there's only so far you can go to try to play people for stupid, and try to sugar coat sh&%$..

For example if you are going from 25% to 20%  that is 25/20=1.25  so a 5 point drop in your overall commission really translates to 25% less earnings!

And second, isn't it nice to be able to mention other sites and really say what you think, in this forum at least. Unlike the soviet era forums at fotolia, for example.

Quote from: lightscribe on January 20, 2011, 13:33

I think the only thing we can do short of forming an artists guild/union with price standards, would be to publicly thank and support those companies that have not made cuts. Could you imagine if in the wake of all these cuts if some company (DT or SS) had the nerve to actually raise commissions, you would see every single microstocker flock to their site immediately, its such a no brainer business decision you would have every single microstock photographer flocking to that site.  You would instantly become the number one microstock site overnight.

The number one microstock site of what? The most contributors?

Here's the problem with this approach. Every site already has too many microstockers and images and adding more isn't the top priority for any of the top sites. It's only a priority for new sites that don't have any images and need contributors and images in order to attract buyers.

It's clear the agencies' top priorities are to A) increase revenue by attracting buyers, which is a struggle in today's economy, and B) increase profitability as quickly as possible which is easily done by reducing commissions. Money/sales/revenue/profitability drives their every decision. Make more sales, pay contributors less.

The more quickly contributors start thinking like an agency owner and less like a contributor the better off you'll be.

Okay that's just extremely confusing.  Is there a way to tell if we have a 4, 6 or 8 vector?  I'm gonna have to go look. *edit* I see it a lot of 4s and one 6 so far in my looking.

Which leads me to another question...is this effective now or at a later date?

This move was actually very clever from Fotolia.
They upset mainly those with smaller portfolios and who produce lower quality images, while keeping the succesfull contributors which mostly have high quality images happy.
If those smaller contributors stop uploading out of protest or occassionaly delete their portfolios, Fotolia probably really does not care much about it.

I think this is where I start handing out some i-told-ya-so's.

I think of it as if I had intended to stay an honest woman, but as I find myself on the streets and beaten by various pimps, the best option seems to be to find the biggest, ugliest, strongest pimp and hope he beats me the least

Quote from: Freezingpictures on January 20, 2011, 05:39

This move was actually very clever from Fotolia.
They upset mainly those with smaller portfolios and who produce lower quality images, while keeping the succesfull contributors which mostly have high quality images happy.
If those smaller contributors stop uploading out of protest or occassionaly delete their portfolios, Fotolia probably really does not care much about it.

The probably p*ssed off the upper-level contributors when they lowered possible maximum prices for higher level contributors - had they cut commissions from these contributors now, they would have risked loosing those contributors (at least several of them). So they slashed at the lower level ones. And I am afraid it is a general trend - to boot out small contributors/ hobbyists.

No its the opposite! contributors with thousands of shots in their ports doesnt at all automatically mean great images? it could be thousands of just generic, mediocre stuff. means nothing,  quantity does no mean quality at all.
However, quanttity means the contributor is going to think very, very carefully before deleting or erazing images.
Friend of mine has got a port in the Getty-RM, just 250 shots, thats all but extremly unique material and selling for incredible amouts of money. Quantity means nothing, in that respect but its a safeguard that the contributor will probably stay on.