lathspell Since you already deleted your account

So therefore your comments are officially "discounted" in my book.
Be careful! If you keep deleting accounts whenever you get pissed,
you will soon find yourself looking for a new hobby.

This is sorta like the golfers I hear of breaking their clubs when they miss that "Important shot".
Cutting off their nose to spite their face.

Cranky MIZ

Quote from: lisafx on May 31, 2008, 20:11
Oh, this is BS.  I was upset when I thought I was getting .30 at emerald level.  .29?!!!  Nice that they bumped the bottom end, but they are leaving the top end - IE their main producers - feeling hosed. 

As Ross Perot once said "I hear that giant * sound...". My port on FT is only 150, but I feel your pain and have much empathy. A giant hose job for sure.

Quote from: PaulieWalnuts on May 31, 2008, 20:26
So if they bumped it up and it still is not enough, what would everyone be satisfied with? Or doesn't it matter and you hate the subs no matter what?

What I'd be happy with is a credit based subscription along the lines of what iStock introduced, assuming reasonable per-credit commissions.

If the flat payout, limited to L sizes and below has to stay, I'd be happy with commissions that were at the very least equal to SS's so that there's no loss if someone switches which site they subscribe to.

However, I think FT is just flexing its muscle to see what they can get away with. As Lisa pointed out in another thread, they're just making it easier and easier to consider exclusivity elsewhere. I was not moved by Chad's "give it a chance" plea - after we put up with the total fiasco that was the introduction of V2, which trashed sales for months, they decide to introduce subscriptions and low ball the commissions. The extra 2 cents is in no way helpful in addressing the issues their rotten commissions raise.

Quote from: rjmiz on May 31, 2008, 20:52
Be careful! If you keep deleting accounts whenever you get pissed,
you will soon find yourself looking for a new hobby.

Yep, and I can tell you which: finding stock agencies where you can earn more in shorter time with less work and a better communication!

Believe it or not: during the last 5 months I've applied to 2 local agencies which actually earn me twice the monthly Fotolia amount each out of portfolios half the size of my Fotolia collection (until yesterday of course ) and *tataaa!* one of them even doing the keywording by themselves.

I will not drop istockphoto and Dreamstime in the closer future (istockphoto because of being there from almost the beginning, Dreamstime because they have a nice tendency upwards), but i.e. I already feel very uncomfortable with Shutterstock which is probably the next in my "Goodbye!" list.

Fotolia was just ripe. Too much effort for too little revenue, and the subscriptions finally triggered the bottom.

Quote from: rjmiz on May 31, 2008, 20:52
This is sorta like the golfers I hear of breaking their clubs when they miss that "Important shot".

Nope, it's more like finding a better golf course when the current one is raising the costs while lowering the service and surrounding the holes with concrete walls.

I've just submitted new photos to Big 6. For the first time Fotolia was excluded.

I never liked subs  but unfortunately there doesn't seem to be much we can do  about it. I don't think it would help if we just left the sites that are offering it  especially considering  all the big  players have it now.

Quote from: jsnover on May 31, 2008, 21:32

Quote from: PaulieWalnuts on May 31, 2008, 20:26
So if they bumped it up and it still is not enough, what would everyone be satisfied with? Or doesn't it matter and you hate the subs no matter what?

What I'd be happy with is a credit based subscription along the lines of what iStock introduced, assuming reasonable per-credit commissions.

If the flat payout, limited to L sizes and below has to stay, I'd be happy with commissions that were at the very least equal to SS's so that there's no loss if someone switches which site they subscribe to.

This pretty much sums up my feelings too. 

I realize that Fotolia had to introduce subscriptions to stay competitive and I sympathize.  But it would cushion the blow considerably if they had come up with a fairer commission structure, along the lines with Shutterstock's. 

Or at a minimum paid .30 on the high end which would have at least been competitive with Dreamstime.  And by high end I mean a realistic sampling - maybe gold and above?  I just checked the rankings and there are only TWO contributors above emerald!  And they are both saphire, so the ruby and diamond numbers quoted are complete fantasy.  Nobody is getting that.   

To say the range is .25 - .32 is not true since nobody qualifies for anything above .30 and only two guys are even getting that.  And if Fotolia thinks those two guys - the top sellers in the microstock world - are gonna be happy with .30 I think they are kidding themselves.

Yeah, that's about true. They should be trying to equal what SS is paying. Give it time: subscriptions are a new and unknown market to them - by the end of the year they'll be confident enough in their position to give us more. Or not, who knows?

Not much love for the subs offer then? I agree it's too low. But I'm also seeing >.25 XS sales at iS on a much too regular basis too!

Wow! They announce it over the weekend and have it running on Monday. Looks like their pricing plan is similar to DT's 25 per day plan.

Did you not notice that the commission on subs is below the .33 commission you get for an xs download....They need to offer an opt out of all as stockxpert does or they will lose their contributors.

 Or below the 37 cents I get for an XS (and I'm only silver - imagine how the emeralds feel who sell for 2 credits for an XS at whatever their percentage is and get 29 cents instead).

So far today my 9 sales are all regular (non-subscription) credits though

I think y'all misread the wow. It was not the kind of wow that one give when one is watching a fireworks display. It is more the wow that one gives when one sees a lightning bolt hit a tree 30 feet away.

Some "confidential info", which can be found at fotolia forums:

Quote

Oleg has asked me to share some  confidential information with the community about subscriptions.

First the average individual buyer at Fotolia downloads less than 3 images per day and less than 6 images per month. We don't have high volume buyers.

If you take in account only images of non-exclusive members L size or smaller (what is offered by subscription),the average price paid for these images is 2.2 credits. The average commission paid out is 40% or .88 credits.

So the pay per download system pays out to the photographer community an average 2.64 credits per day and 5.28 credits per month per buyer.

The subscription service will collect higher volume customers. They will pay a min of $249 a month to download a lot of images. People who pay this much money will download a lot of images.

So lets assume the subscription member uses 50% of their images allotted that is 375 images downloaded. The average payment to photographers for these downloads will be around .28 credits. Netting the contributors 105 credits per month.

So what is better for the community 5.28 credits per month or 105 credits per month per buyer?

If all fotolia buyers now would be subscribers, the community -globally -would share over 20 times more pay outs.

I think the math speaks for itself .

I'm just wondering: if an averege buyer buys less tha 6 images per month, why does he state that he buys less than 3 images per day (which is obvious since it should be 6/30, which is 1/5 of an image per day).  Also I think these stats are presented in a way to calm the contributors. They probably counted all the buyers that ever bought an image (what else could explain 1/5 image per day).

there are no sups i think my earnings today where nomal

Quote from: XeniaII on June 04, 2008, 00:40
there are no sups i think my earnings today where nomal

that is a little bit naive you won't see any changes on the very first day!

Funny , he says average commission for L size or smaller. Why would you do math with average commission numbers , lets use only L size cause thats whats the buyer gonna take , inst he?   And that changing the results for quite a bit , me thinks