3 years in the future. What are you seeing as a micro stock contributor? What do you think would happen to you and agencies?

Agencies boasting 75 million image libraries as a continuing price war reduces contributors return per upload 30% to 50%. 

Seriously. Three years from now looking at the path that (some) photographers are happy pursuing?

Royalty Free images will be known as 'Free' images. Even established buyers will be downloading images for free. Completely free, from a myriad of sites in addition to those already available. The value of a 'Royalty Free' image will be eroded to $0.00.

Those (some) photographers will procrastinate it will help build their stable of 'followers' for commission work - yeah right, of course it will

Photography that returns any type of re-imbursement for the photographer will be Rights Managed only or private commissions.

In fact, just the way it used to be before the advent of 'Royalty Free' stock.

Conscientious, particular and individuals seeking ' unique imagery' for advertisements or editorial will only look to RM sites (it's happening already) and the over saturated, over used and over exposed global libraries of 'RF' images will be the price-less fodder of everyday blogs and lower end agencies and free to air apps.

Bland, bland and blander.

The bubble has not yet burst, it won't happen that quickly. But someone has untied the knot and is holding the teat of the ballon and letting the air out very slowly.

In three years it'll be completely deflated and for many, the hobby that allowed them 'to make money from your photos' will be over. Back to the day job.

On the bright side, at least they'll have a pretty decent DSLR for taking snaps of their grandchildren while on vacation.

EDIT: And Oh, the likes of Oringer will sell out their shares before it all goes t*t's up and probably go into politics

A basic microstock subscription will be free. That is the inevitable outcome of the economics IMO.

Soon after that the robots kill us.

(+moonbases, monorails & personal hovercrafts obviously)

Quote from: PixelBytes on June 11, 2014, 08:29

Did you see the movie Road Warrior?   

LOL. Like This...

just walk away

Yes!!  Exactly like that! 

So are we all saying "it's essentially dead" ?

A badge with my name on it and a teenage supervisor telling me how to do a very simple job.

And then, very quickly being jobless again. . .

I think the slide will just continue - RPI will be lower, the sites that screw photogs will continue to do so. The quality of images will continue to rise as will the volume available. It will be even harder to get started in this business, but plenty will keep trying. Some older contributors will keep at it, others will just let their portfolios ride, and a few will pull them in anger.

Quote from: Difydave on June 11, 2014, 10:38

Quote from: fotoVoyager on June 11, 2014, 10:00

A badge with my name on it and a teenage supervisor telling me how to do a very simple job.

And then, very quickly being jobless again. . .

We're all doomed to be serfs of neo-liberal capitalist Barons one way or another, taking photos, flipping burgers, wiping bottoms. People in the West will revolt eventually, but not in my lifetime I expect.

I thought us microstock photographers  already were "serfs of neo-liberal capitalist Barons"
We'll be OK though in the future you predict. Just as long as we can get releases for the burgers!

close your eyes- and what to you see? "nothing but total darkness"...

Three years can be a really LONG time in an internet spawned industry with very low entry barrier.

So three years from now the word 'micro stock' could be obsolete. Like some old relic of a bygone industry �

Micro stock companies could have finished slitting each other's throats and the few remaining could boast of 100 million+ images available for free.  That's not at all unlikely with an acquisition or two thrown in. Advertising revenue wars could be the order of the day among these few remaining agencies.

Micro stock work could be something like what some of the sites like Flickr etc are today. Largely hobby-driven by amateur photographers.

Micro stock photographers could be in other jobs - from flipping burgers to shooting commissions for advertisers and celebrities or whatever!  Maybe there would be some closed-to-entry RM agencies, probably owned by few photographers, and possibly with specialized content, maybe topic based, such as medical images or travel etc.

Occasionally the ex-microstockers would chat online about the good ole days � 

Sorry for my bad english.

Am I the only one who sees a brighter future?. Yes probably we will get less sales every month but I see a time where technology and fresh ideas change this industry for the better.

Currently every site selling stock photography is pretty dumb and almost all of them share the same basic features. But what would happen when some clever programer start to offer smart features like search for concepts rather than keywords, past performance of the image in social media or something, most suitable market for that image, you name it, is all possible.

And yes, probably the price in some places will go free, but you will get a cut of the profit in the final product: Imagine that the buyer wants to create a small documentary about cancer, he looks for the appropriate images and video and creates his documentary and he publish it on youtube, every creator will get part of the profit. I am sure the technology is here, unfortunately the implementations that we have seen are bad, but I am sure someone somewhere is going to build the right tools with the right model, in the near future.

As a example, I am building a tool to recommend not only keywords with a good combination between demand and supply, but whole concepts and is very accurate, with examples and everything. It takes like 1 hours but it works!. I only dream of what can be made by professionals.

A glass of Cretan Malmsey on the terrace, the sun setting over Drapanos, Pipistrelles soaring and swoopng and snapping above the lemon grove while the cicadas gradually fall silent. The inevitable strains of "Never on Sunday" wafting across from the distant taverna, borne on a warm breeze redolent of thyme and sage,  do battle with the equally distant sound of Dimitri's lyra striking up a lively syrtaki.

I'm sure microstock will suffice to keep the Malmsey flowing, at two euros a litre from Manolis's homemade reserves, it should cover the food bill, too, and - fortunately - we don't need much more than that.  As for the rest, it's anybody's guess. I don't know if I will still supply the micros or if I will be shooting landscapes and nature for my own amusement.