If commission cuts stop or reverse and there's potential for me to grow my earnings in the future, I'll keep uploading.  At the moment, that looks highly unlikely.  Hopefully that will change or I wont be doing this in 5 years.  I'm not going to remove my portfolios but there's not much point in carrying on working for very little return

hope we are all here to watch it, kind off hard to predict IMO

for sure agencies will continue to approve new stuff, they will obviously do regular cleanings too, don�t believe that after 20 Millions buyer will be excited to know they have "now" 100 M to find their perfect picture, not to mention that only the top contributors will survive but again we know how best matches change so I believe we can't predict even tomorrow sales

Same as everything, micro is no exeption, its had its heydays and glorydays. It wont come to en end but it will stabilize itself into just an average earner, exactly the same as the old film-agencies did after a 10-15, year span. Only the very big and successful, nieched, portfolios will survive. Eventually they will all amalgamate into one or two outfits. Exclusivity in micro will be dropped, its pointless since there are 100 times more independants creating as good, some even better stuff. I will give it another 2-3, years before we see the above scenario.

Its almost scary, how identical the history of micro is mirrored in the trad-agency history, same lifespan, everything.

So folks! its time for an exit and escape plan or else its thanks for the coffee and solong.

Really thoughtful analysis Bob.  Very much worth the listen

the only way to stay afloat is having a big portfolio, anything else comes later.

people who are slow to produce or do it part time will never last long, there are just too many new photos being added every day.

the real danger is the publishing and editorial market going fully digital and using only cheap low-res images.
that would be the end for many agencies and many photographers.

the other danger is the western economy collapsing soon, nobody want to talk about it but it's a real and serious threat !

Thanks for the analysis Bob.  I'm not to sure why you think Pixmac have a good future?  They're not even in the low earners in the earnings poll.  There's been some serious problems with them in the past and I think it's hard to get a good reputation back.

I'm not convinced that the contributors that are doing well now have a good future with microstock.  Most people here seem to hit a wall at some point that makes it extremely difficult to increase earnings.  With the sites cutting commissions, we have no idea how low they will be in 5 years time.  Like you said, the sites aren't concerned about losing contributors because there's so many of us.  So how can we improve earnings after hitting the wall when commissions are being cut?  The cost of living is increasing every year and I need to know I can increase my microstock earnings significantly in the future.

The other point I strongly disagree with is that sites like Fotolia have cut commissions because they're expenses have gone up.  I'm sure they're doing it because they think they can get away with it and it makes them more profit.

"The wall",  yes and that wall, is a fact, you can add thousands of files and once you hit this wall, thats it. Ofcourse theres an increase but in no way paralel with amount of files added.

A bit over 1 year in microstock here, this is how I see it:

Microstock getting more and more infested with hobbysits celebrating every penny they make.
Agencies supporting those hobbyists and treat us alike, making it easier to do as they please and squeeze even more out of us. These hobbyists try their best to defend just about every bad thing that happens at an agency because they think their sales will magically go up, making the agency conclude their is nothing wrong, case closed.
More underpaid and unqualified reviewers that do not care if some contributors make a living from this but punish their direct competition or use the rejection button as a tool (toy) to speed up their work.
Because of contributors/images overload more site/server bugs that will negatively affect our sales.
Even less (automated) support then what we already receive and more sneaky actions behind the scenes.

Something positive? let's see..uh�.the existance of this forum so we can at least put the word out and try to do something about all this. Of course the majority will not put their voice out because of fear for retaliation (why do you think I'm still anonymous) or lack of time (too busy trying to survive in this business) and therefore also contribute to the downfall of this business.
That's why I also hate to read many threads that are filled with contributors flaming eachother or think by being an .ss they will somehow eliminate their competition (on the contrary).

Good times!
Now for all those big shots complaining about small potatoes, try to imagine how hard it is for us newcomers to make it in this business   2005 was a joke!

I do hope things will change for the better, that's why I'm still here, but from what I have been reading from long time contributors I highly doubt this will happen, on the contrary, it seems to get worse by the day.

Take care all and sorry for my english, it's not my native language.

Many microstock shooters are fine photographers but they are too lazy to work the market to diversify the market and expand their earnings.

A photographer friend moved out of microstock into wedding photography and improved his earnings from photography hundred times.

Microstock is like a bad joke to him.

A photographer friend moved out of microstock into wedding photography and improved his earnings from photography hundred times.

Microstock is like a bad joke to him.

Doesn't sound like he was very good at it.

A bit over 1 year in microstock here, this is how I see it:

Microstock getting more and more infested with hobbysits celebrating every penny they make.
Agencies supporting those hobbyists and treat us alike, making it easier to do as they please and squeeze even more out of us. These hobbyists try their best to defend just about every bad thing that happens at an agency because they think their sales will magically go up, making the agency conclude their is nothing wrong, case closed.
More underpaid and unqualified reviewers that do not care if some contributors make a living from this but punish their direct competition or use the rejection button as a tool (toy) to speed up their work.
Because of contributors/images overload more site/server bugs that will negatively affect our sales.
Even less (automated) support then what we already receive and more sneaky actions behind the scenes.

Something positive? let's see..uh�.the existance of this forum so we can at least put the word out and try to do something about all this. Of course the majority will not put their voice out because of fear for retaliation (why do you think I'm still anonymous) or lack of time (too busy trying to survive in this business) and therefore also contribute to the downfall of this business.
That's why I also hate to read many threads that are filled with contributors flaming eachother or think by being an .ss they will somehow eliminate their competition (on the contrary).

Good times!
Now for all those big shots complaining about small potatoes, try to imagine how hard it is for us newcomers to make it in this business   2005 was a joke!

I do hope things will change for the better, that's why I'm still here, but from what I have been reading from long time contributors I highly doubt this will happen, on the contrary, it seems to get worse by the day.

Take care all and sorry for my english, it's not my native language.

well, we (old farts) ALL told you it would end this way for micros.
now it's too late.

besides, i don't blame the agencies, it's their job to maximise profits and cut costs.

can't see the problem for the newcomers, it's never been easy to make serious bucks with stock photos.
it was certainly easier in the golden age of micros (2005 ?) but it was never easy to get the foot in the door with
Getty or Corbis.

the over supply will just force agencies to raise the bar even more.

in the end of the day you will survive only with a big enough portfolio, anything else comes later and i'm reaching the conclusion
that keywording is now maybe more important than the image itself.

I've had to buy about half a dozen licenses this year, and for all but one of them I really struggled to find what I wanted on the micro sites.
For several I had to rethink the designs, because the photos just weren't out there. For one I had to grit my teeth and fork out 100+ credits (I think about 120) for an exclusive (photo+?) photo on IStock, because it was the only one that fit the bill.
So I guess what I'm saying is the like Lagereek says, there's tonnes of stuff on the micros, but a lot of it covers the same ground without lot of actual variety.

There is one gigantic, huge thing though that separated the trad film agencies from micros, trad agencies realized immediately that the contributors were their life-blood and did everything to keep people happy and productive. Micros? are just about doing everything to make it as hard as possible for contributors and buyers ( bar a few such as, SS,DT, etc) and on the whole its become a shabby market a sort of cut-price fleemarket.
As I said, micros will stabilize itself and become just another low earner but the good old days even the mediocre days are over. Were lucky though, just imagine sitting with a gigantic port of say 10K images, all exclusive at IS or something? What!  and behind your back, Getty is wheeling and dealing, selling, buying, etc and in the end you dont know where you are, finally, you wake up on a Monday and youre finished.
I Personally know many buyers who are really fed up with micros, fed up with searching for an image or a specific concept and theyre bumping into tons and tons of really bad and irrelevant material so they consult the macros, RF instead and dont mind paying that little extra, saves time I suppose.

i would be nervous to be an IS exclusive nowadays, who knows what they have in store for the next season !

on the other side if buyers are fed up they should reconsider the professional figure of the "image researcher" and give it a try.
the idea that any idiot buyer without any experience in stock could just grab what he needed on the web in a few clicks was BS from the start,
now that agencies have tens of millions of images online it's indeed cheaper to pay a small price for someone researching the pics for you, it's nothing new actually any RM agency does that since ages.

time will come when RF agencies will just refuse any new submission or at least they will for some categories, after all they already don't accept sunsets and other boring stuff.

....after all they already don't accept sunsets and other boring stuff.

Isn't that a myth?  I just looked on SS and there's a few new really drab sunsets.  DT only seem to accept boring stuff that doesn't sell well, as long as it isn't "similar".  In theory, they've raised the bar but I think in reality the bar is all over the place, because reviewing is subjective.  Every reviewer sees things differently, a lot on SS wont accept any image that has areas out of focus but others don't seem to care about that at all.

This is the reason why I believe the sites should all accept more and then delete images that don't sell after a year.  It will reduce the influence of the poorly paid reviewers that are given the impossible task of deciding what buyers want.  It will give buyers the chance to see more new images that might be just what they're looking for.  There will be a ton of crap but if the search is any good, that shouldn't be a problem.  There's already a ton of crap from the images that were uploaded in the early years, why not delete all those that haven't sold?  And looking through the new images, some reviewers are letting a lot of crap in anyway and they have a good record of rejecting images that sell well on the other sites.

Quote from: Microbius on July 17, 2012, 01:59

but a lot of it covers the same ground without lot of actual variety.

once again blame the micro agencies and their idiotic policy of not accepting many similar images.

i can shoot a statue of buddha in 20-30 different and interesting point of view, but agencies will never pick
up more than 4-5 of these and guess what then buyers like the photo but can't find what they need (ie : full buddha
with head and feet, or a close up of the eyes, etc).

That is a large part of it, two of the photos I needed were pretty well covered subject wise, but nothing from the angles I required.

I wounder what the future will bring?...

I heard a rumor (emphasis on "rumor") that istock will cut royalty rates again before the end of this year. I believe it's entirely possible. The source of the rumor is a sort of "I know a guy who knows a guy inside istock" sort of thing, so I'm not sure I'd give the source a whole lot of credibility, but I do believe that it's very possible that another cut will happen soon. Back during the first cut I predicted that they'd do it again within 3 years. I still believe that prediction is very likely to come true.

...And will vectors sell the better then now?...

I think the vector market is finally leveling off. There were a few years where vector sales seemed to keep increasing after photo sales had started to level off beyond those initial rapid growth years. I think we're hitting that same leveling off part of the vector timeline as well. I think it just took a little longer for the vector market to hit the same saturation point that photos hit a few years back. Both in terms of content saturation and talented artist saturation in the market.

Someone at SS told me that their latest stats show vectors outselling photos on average 2-to-1. I think that ratio used to be much different. Probably more like 5-to-1 or maybe more at one point. The rate of sales for vectors is becoming more on par with photos.

I thought that big sales graphic SS did a while ago said vector sales were actually much less than photos, like 30% the year it was produced

ETA: anyone got the link to that graphic, can't track it down, you know the one that said what there most popular image ever was and all that stuff. It was posted on this forum at the time

I think that's accurate. The stat I heard was more about the frequency of sales, vector vs. photo. There are many more photos on the site, and thus many more photo sales overall. But vectors outpace photos roughly 2-to-1 even though the total quantity of sales may be fewer.

I heard a rumor (emphasis on "rumor") that istock will cut royalty rates again before the end of this year. I believe it's entirely possible. The source of the rumor is a sort of "I know a guy who knows a guy inside istock" sort of thing, so I'm not sure I'd give the source a whole lot of credibility, but I do believe that it's very possible that another cut will happen soon. Back during the first cut I predicted that they'd do it again within 3 years. I still believe that prediction is very likely to come true.

The mechanism for lowering royalties is already in place.  The RC system, combined with steeply declining sales numbers, will do the dirty work.  The first year of the RC system, I had good sales, and easily achieved the 19% level.  The following year, sales were way down and I barely hung on to 19%.  This year, with sales in absolute free fall, it is quite likely I will drop down to 18%.

Reading the end of month threads, it seems that most diamonds and black diamonds (the most expensive contributors) have been reporting similar plunges in sales numbers.  Unless RC targets are revised steeply downwards, many will see their royalty levels drop.  There you have it - Istock can lower royalties without doing anything at all.  Voila!

Commission cuts... hmm... I'm not sure how I feel about that. It could be a good thing or it could be a bad thing. I guess I don't have a lot of confidence in contributors either, so it would probably be a bad thing.

Quote from: EmberMike on July 17, 2012, 09:46

I heard a rumor (emphasis on "rumor") that istock will cut royalty rates again before the end of this year. I believe it's entirely possible. The source of the rumor is a sort of "I know a guy who knows a guy inside istock" sort of thing, so I'm not sure I'd give the source a whole lot of credibility, but I do believe that it's very possible that another cut will happen soon. Back during the first cut I predicted that they'd do it again within 3 years. I still believe that prediction is very likely to come true.

The mechanism for lowering royalties is already in place.  The RC system, combined with steeply declining sales numbers, will do the dirty work.  The first year of the RC system, I had good sales, and easily achieved the 19% level.  The following year, sales were way down and I barely hung on to 19%.  This year, with sales in absolute free fall, it is quite likely I will drop down to 18%.

Reading the end of month threads, it seems that most diamonds and black diamonds (the most expensive contributors) have been reporting similar plunges in sales numbers.  Unless RC targets are revised steeply downwards, many will see their royalty levels drop.  There you have it - Istock can lower royalties without doing anything at all.  Voila!

Think they care?  theyre 9-5, ers,  as long as they get their pay slip in the end of the month, the place could burn up as far as they are concerned.

Not what I heard, I seem to remember some write up or something, about six months back, where it was stipulated that photos outsold vectors, etc by about, 50% and that the vector artists were going through a rough time. as if everyone isnt!

Quote from: Microbius on July 15, 2012, 08:58

Thanks Bob, really interesting. One thing, where does the specific 606 top photographers figure come from?
And I would also like to know why Pixmac has a good future.
Thanks again!

The figure is brought out of the data of number of sales vs number of photographers sourced directly from iStock (the earlier videos in the series cover it in a bit more depth).

This was recorded almost a year ago now, at which point Pixmac was roaring for me and they were the only ones around doing all the technical stuff right (SEO/design/convenience etc). Since then a couple of the established agencies have upped their game on that side of things, and with Deposit Photos arrival they've also dug in too. Whilst I'm still optimistic about Pixmac (my referral earnings there are still solid for both photographers and buyers) due to their good traffic figures, I'm not as blown away as I was with their performance a year ago

Interesting, thanks for clearing that up

Quote from: antistock on July 17, 2012, 02:34

....after all they already don't accept sunsets and other boring stuff.

Isn't that a myth?  I just looked on SS and there's a few new really drab sunsets.  DT only seem to accept boring stuff that doesn't sell well, as long as it isn't "similar".  In theory, they've raised the bar but I think in reality the bar is all over the place, because reviewing is subjective.  Every reviewer sees things differently, a lot on SS wont accept any image that has areas out of focus but others don't seem to care about that at all.

This is the reason why I believe the sites should all accept more and then delete images that don't sell after a year.  It will reduce the influence of the poorly paid reviewers that are given the impossible task of deciding what buyers want.  It will give buyers the chance to see more new images that might be just what they're looking for.  There will be a ton of crap but if the search is any good, that shouldn't be a problem.  There's already a ton of crap from the images that were uploaded in the early years, why not delete all those that haven't sold?  And looking through the new images, some reviewers are letting a lot of crap in anyway and they have a good record of rejecting images that sell well on the other sites.

I'm surprised that none have done it. Reviewing must be one of their major costs.
Do like Mostphotos everything accepted and then like you said 1-2 years no sale its gone.

^^^No, the search sinks images that don't appeal to buyers, so they don't have to wade through them every time they search.  The sites that only accept what reviewers think is great quality, like Image Vortex, sell very little.

I'll side with sharpshot on this one. One man's trash...etc. But I would certainly vote to delete any image that hasn't sold after one year on a top tier site, and two years on a middle or low earner site.

I'll side with sharpshot on this one. One man's trash...etc. But I would certainly vote to delete any image that hasn't sold after one year on a top tier site, and two years on a middle or low earner site.

I think you would seriously have to worry that some contributors would stop uploading if those were the rules. I probably would because I have never made the home run images that sell immediately. Also, I think you would ruin the diversity of the catalog. You would eliminate a lot of subjects that are unique, but not necessarily popular. Maybe, I'm wrong, but I just picture a homogenous collection of older images that cover all the same subjects.

I think they need to fix the search and the spam issues and not accept images that have clear technical flaws.

It would be a rather large task to fix the spam issues, but I bet if they were serious and disabled serial spammer's ports that would get some attention.

Quote from: sharpshot on July 23, 2012, 03:33

^^^No, the search sinks images that don't appeal to buyers, so they don't have to wade through them every time they search.  The sites that only accept what reviewers think is great quality, like Image Vortex, sell very little.

So buddy, what you are saying is that all our reviewers are doing a fantastic job?  oh well, thats great, didnt know that until now.

No, you seem to think reviewers are great because you want them to reject more.  So reviewers will have even more say over what buyers are allowed to look at.  I think that's a recipe for disaster, as has been demonstrated by the few sites that have tried it.

If there was a way to only have good new saleable images on a site, I would be all for it but using reviewers to make that decision isn't going to work.  Microstock sites don't pay enough to attract reviewers with those skills and if they did, it would cost much more.  Who would end up paying for that?   I'm not even sure it's possible for an expert to define what images are going to make money and what wont with a high degree of accuracy.  It's a subjective decision.

Just look at the DT silmilars mess.  Every reviewer seems to have a different idea of what a similar is.  There's no consistency.  It's demoralising for contributors and I don't see how it helps buyers at all.

I want the rewievers to do like professional reviewers....

I still don't see how that's possible.
How much are professional reviewers paid compared to the tiny amount that microstock reviewers are paid?
How many years experience do they have compared to microstock reviewers?
Wont the cost be too much for microstock?
If the current reviewers are asked to do this, do you really think they would do a good job?  I don't.
I also can't agree that sites accept any old images because we put pressure on them.  We put pressure on them to pay us a decent commission but they generally take no notice of that.
Perhaps for every buyer that insists on only seeing high quality images, there's one that wants as much choice as possible?

Quote from: sharpshot on July 23, 2012, 14:29

Quote from: Lagereek on July 23, 2012, 11:57

I want the rewievers to do like professional reviewers....

I still don't see how that's possible.
How much are professional reviewers paid compared to the tiny amount that microstock reviewers are paid?
How many years experience do they have compared to microstock reviewers?
Wont the cost be too much for microstock?
If the current reviewers are asked to do this, do you really think they would do a good job?  I don't.
I also can't agree that sites accept any old images because we put pressure on them.  We put pressure on them to pay us a decent commission but they generally take no notice of that.
Perhaps for every buyer that insists on only seeing high quality images, there's one that wants as much choice as possible?

A pro reviewer, picture-editor, is paid in the region of, 5K / month. they are mostly graphically orientated, can spot a commercial image, etc, etc, etc. One of my pals is working for the National-Geographics and thats his payout.

And some buyers will buy from NG exclusively, or almost so.
Horses for courses.

Quote from: Lagereek on July 23, 2012, 11:57

I want the rewievers to do like professional reviewers....

I still don't see how that's possible.
How much are professional reviewers paid compared to the tiny amount that microstock reviewers are paid?
How many years experience do they have compared to microstock reviewers?
Wont the cost be too much for microstock?
If the current reviewers are asked to do this, do you really think they would do a good job?  I don't.
I also can't agree that sites accept any old images because we put pressure on them.  We put pressure on them to pay us a decent commission but they generally take no notice of that.
Perhaps for every buyer that insists on only seeing high quality images, there's one that wants as much choice as possible?

I don't think better reviewers are needed. I guess I always felt like image reviews should function more like a spell check. They are just used to determine whether the file has any obvious mistakes. Any quality or aesthetic concerns should be made in an initial contributor review. If you raise that bar, you don't have to clean as much up on the back end.

This is microstock, people! If you want professional reviewers, professional images, professional everything, GO TO MACROSTOCK. Stop trying to change Walmart or JCPenney into Dillards or Robinsons (or whatever upscale, expensive department store you have in your area).

Micro started out as amateur photogs submitting photos to get paid little, but make money based on quantity. Those same amateurs, over time, improved to produce better quality images but it's still microstock. Suppliers get paid cheap so the images can sell cheap and satisfy the lower-budgeted markets.

If there's a market for higher priced images and you are a professional, sell on the macro agencies so you can get the higher prices. Leave the micros for what they were originally intended to do. Seems like people want to change the micros into something they are not, and never should be. That's why they're called microstock. 

(done in my best Andy Rooney impersonation)

I agree and disagree with you. I guess I've thought that there will be a split at some point in micro, and two models will emerge. A crowd sourced type model and a more high quality midstock model. It just seems like you have these two groups of contributors in micro, but they don't necessarily want the same things. iStock seems to be trying to foster both of them at once which I'm not sure is going to work. I think you may have to separate them to make it work long term.

This is microstock, people! If you want professional reviewers, professional images, professional everything, GO TO MACROSTOCK. Stop trying to change Walmart or JCPenney into Dillards or Robinsons (or whatever upscale, expensive department store you have in your area).

Micro started out as amateur photogs submitting photos to get paid little, but make money based on quantity. Those same amateurs, over time, improved to produce better quality images but it's still microstock. Suppliers get paid cheap so the images can sell cheap and satisfy the lower-budgeted markets.

If there's a market for higher priced images and you are a professional, sell on the macro agencies so you can get the higher prices. Leave the micros for what they were originally intended to do. Seems like people want to change the micros into something they are not, and never should be. That's why they're called microstock. 

(done in my best Andy Rooney impersonation)

Yes its microstock but so what, God knows the big four have got enough revenue to employ professional people? there are many full-time, professional photographers in micro, so why shouldnt their material be judged professionally?

Well I tell you what I think. If pro editors were reviewing, some 50% of the entire, global micro files would go straight into the dustbin. Thats probably what most admins are afraid of.