The only way "there is no going back" may not be true is if ultimately, the agencies find they have pushed pricing so low that they themselves can no longer sustain a business.
whole point is they HAVEN'T reduced prices, just the amt paid to contributors - they continue to make the same as before
I understand that. But "big picture"wise generally speaking, it's a lot cheaper for someone to purchase stock photography than it was 10+ years ago. That's really the root of the problem in addition to the agencies very low payouts. The agencies are responsible for that decline in value via their pricing policies and they themselves may ultimately fall victim to it...pricing themselves out of business.
the 'lower' prices have come mostly from subscriptions while single image sales have remained constant - they rely on many/most buyers not to use their full quota, there by reducing number of sales they have to pay to contributors while retaining most of the subscription price
canva leads the way on this -at the end of the month, they pay a subscription commission based on each artists sub dl.
