Quote from: ShadySue on May 30, 2011, 02:28

Hard to have sympathy with that one, given that it was posted after the latest best match shuffle, which puts non-esclusive, non P+ images in half of the top line of five of my usual searches.

This was not my experience when searching last night. I didn't see any difference in how heavily weighted the search was with Vetta/Agency.

These clients are the same folks that pay for wedding photos that are noisy with bad white balance and just plain crappy, so image quality isn't their top priority. It seems like many people look at things from their own perspective only. They think (and may be correct) that they produce quality images and should be compensated adequately. The problem is that there are a huge number of people that need photos that can't tell the difference between a good photo and a bad one. They simply want a photo that illustrates a concept or service. Microstock is perfect for those people and if it isn't available, they'll seek out alternatives. IMHO there's still a large market for shots that don't cost so much to produce.

Good, so why don't you fish images on Flickr instead of paying IS ?
I'm of your same opinion that there's a huge potential market for bad noisy lowres awful photos but who's gonna take
the time to keyword properly and upload if the payout might be a miserable 0.30$ ?

It's bad enough for some Istock admins to be giving out the "don't let the door hit you in the back" attitude, but it's just insane for microstock contributors to be handing that out!  Anyone trying to send customers to Flikr is, to put it as tactfully as possible,  unlikely to be someone who is reliant on any microstock income.  

Why . are some of you so intent on sending our microstock customers to Flikr?  I prefer them to stay right where they are - on the micros buying my images.  

It's bad enough for some Istock admins to be giving out the "don't let the door hit you in the back" attitude, but it's just insane for microstock contributors to be handing that out!  Anyone trying to send customers to Flikr is, to put it as tactfully as possible,  unlikely to be someone who is reliant on any microstock income.  

So for those making the case that your work is undervalued - you're right!  But for the most part it is the agencies and not the buyers who are undervaluing it.  Higher prices are useless to me if my royalty % and over all income are dropping. 

Quote from: caspixel on May 30, 2011, 09:19

I think most microstock buyers are okay with the $10 price point. It's the $50-$200 "microstock" price point that is the deal killer. Most iStockers report great earnings in 2007-2008. I think that was when iStock had the pricing structure that worked for everyone.

I agree.  The balance between price and commissions seemed to work well at that time.  

I can see how some here are arguing that we should be paid more for our work.  I wholeheartedly agree!  

What appears to be overlookedm, though, is that royalties have NOT kept pace with higher prices.  All the major PPD sites - Istock, Fotolia, & Dreamstime - have simultaneously cut commissions as they raised prices.  So for those making the case that your work is undervalued - you're right!  But for the most part it is the agencies and not the buyers who are undervaluing it.  Higher prices are useless to me if my royalty % and over all income are dropping.  

Honestly, I don't care what my images sell for.  What matters to me is my bottom line.  That's why I sell micro in the first place.  And unfortunately the bottom line is going down as the prices are going up.  

Quote from: Black Sheep on May 30, 2011, 22:12

There's too much oversupply at the moment, and it was predictable from the start since the bar to join IS has been low for a long time.

Since 2002, presumably?

The trad sector operated as a closed shop, setting barriers designed to keep all the cake for a small elite. By doing so, it locked out a lot of people who were more than capable of meeting the market's demand for quality. The artificial inflation in prices it was able to impose in this way created a barrier that prevented money flowing into the industry but ensured that the bit that did come in from stock was split between the select few allowed into the club.

OK, so presumably you were there and you liked it that way. But it's pretty clear that the system was inefficient, artificial and (how I hate to use the word in a normal context now!) unsustainable. Once digital shooters started hammering at the castle gate, undeterred by the only real barrier, of high running costs from having to buy and process film, there was no way the edifice could withstand the assault.

Now you want to rebuild the castle, disregarding the lessons of history?

If iStock sets high barriers to try to reduce the influx of new material and artificially boost prices, sellers will simply go elsewhere and the buyers will gradually migrate to cheaper options. That's how the free market works and it is the free market that has pumped such huge sums of money into photography as a result of breaking the old barriers.

And who is seeing the money? Well, the old-timers are seeing less because the cartel don't work no more. The micro agencies are seeing a lot and they didn't exist. A few thousand upstart photographers who would never have made anything in the 1990s are making a living and hundreds of thousands are getting some pocket money.

The biggest winner of all from this wall of cash is probably the electronics sector, with tens of thousands of newbies buying and upgrading high-end cameras, lenses, computers, programs and memory cards, with purchases being justified against future earnings from stock. The microstock industry has probably generated sales of billions of dollars worth of hardware and software (not to mention lens caps) and accelerated the introduction of high-end DSLRs.

It would be nice if the agencies weren't siphoning off so much of the cash and left more from us. But attempting to choke off the supply of images won't boost prices or earnings.

There are two "bars" that matter: quality and price. The quality bar can be set as high as you like, as long as the price bar is kept low enough not to encourage buyers to look elsewhere. If you raise the price to a level where where buyers will start looking for alternatives, you need to drop the quality bar so that you are not driving high-quality suppliers to other agents by rejecting perfectly good work (I wonder if that is why iStock now seems easier to get work into than Dreamstime or Shutterstock).

The only time the free market will let you succeed by setting very high prices and simultaneously insisting on very high quality is when what you are selling is sufficiently unique for low-priced alternatives not to be available. The cartel system allowed apples on white to sell for hundreds of dollars, the free market won't support that model.

Quote from: anonymous on May 31, 2011, 08:21

give that man a heart!

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on May 31, 2011, 02:30

Quote from: Black Sheep on May 30, 2011, 22:12

There's too much oversupply at the moment, and it was predictable from the start since the bar to join IS has been low for a long time.

Since 2002, presumably?

The trad sector operated as a closed shop, setting barriers designed to keep all the cake for a small elite. By doing so, it locked out a lot of people who were more than capable of meeting the market's demand for quality. The artificial inflation in prices it was able to impose in this way created a barrier that prevented money flowing into the industry but ensured that the bit that did come in from stock was split between the select few allowed into the club.

OK, so presumably you were there and you liked it that way. But it's pretty clear that the system was inefficient, artificial and (how I hate to use the word in a normal context now!) unsustainable. Once digital shooters started hammering at the castle gate, undeterred by the only real barrier, of high running costs from having to buy and process film, there was no way the edifice could withstand the assault.

Now you want to rebuild the castle, disregarding the lessons of history?

If iStock sets high barriers to try to reduce the influx of new material and artificially boost prices, sellers will simply go elsewhere and the buyers will gradually migrate to cheaper options. That's how the free market works and it is the free market that has pumped such huge sums of money into photography as a result of breaking the old barriers.

And who is seeing the money? Well, the old-timers are seeing less because the cartel don't work no more. The micro agencies are seeing a lot and they didn't exist. A few thousand upstart photographers who would never have made anything in the 1990s are making a living and hundreds of thousands are getting some pocket money.

The biggest winner of all from this wall of cash is probably the electronics sector, with tens of thousands of newbies buying and upgrading high-end cameras, lenses, computers, programs and memory cards, with purchases being justified against future earnings from stock. The microstock industry has probably generated sales of billions of dollars worth of hardware and software (not to mention lens caps) and accelerated the introduction of high-end DSLRs.

It would be nice if the agencies weren't siphoning off so much of the cash and left more from us. But attempting to choke off the supply of images won't boost prices or earnings.

There are two "bars" that matter: quality and price. The quality bar can be set as high as you like, as long as the price bar is kept low enough not to encourage buyers to look elsewhere. If you raise the price to a level where where buyers will start looking for alternatives, you need to drop the quality bar so that you are not driving high-quality suppliers to other agents by rejecting perfectly good work (I wonder if that is why iStock now seems easier to get work into than Dreamstime or Shutterstock).

The only time the free market will let you succeed by setting very high prices and simultaneously insisting on very high quality is when what you are selling is sufficiently unique for low-priced alternatives not to be available. The cartel system allowed apples on white to sell for hundreds of dollars, the free market won't support that model.

give that man a heart!