Author Topic: Food for thought (Read 3306 times)

heywoody · « **on:** December 19, 2013, 17:15 »

Someone (Ron I think) posted over at SS.

http://markstoutphotography.wordpress.com/2009/08/06/the-time-magazine-cover-photo-ripoff/

Probably lots of you have seen this already as it's older than my time in microstock but right on the money. MS really doesn't provide a viable source of income for most contributors. Talk of organising the proletariat to do something about this is pie in the sky and sites like offset / stocksy are so far up their own arses that they need a torch to see where they are going but there is the germ of a viable alternative there. Suppose a new or even an existing site with normal top4 acceptance standards were to offer stocksy prices / royalties how may would be prepared to take the risk an put their entire ports there as exclusive content? This could work but only if cheap sites can't compete based on content.

tickstock · « **Reply #1 on:** December 19, 2013, 17:44 »

gostwyck · « **Reply #2 on:** December 19, 2013, 17:47 »

That's an ancient blog post about an ancient argument. What's the point in re-hashing it all again?

heywoody · « **Reply #3 on:** December 19, 2013, 18:16 »

Those sites are a little harder to get into (Alamy excepted) and don't really use the micro business model. In itself MS is a good model but the returns are poor as the sites offer the same product and compete on price. If a higher paying site could corner the market by having the lions share of useful content, intelligent self-interest could motivate people not to supply cheap sites who would have to respond to survive.

tickstock · « **Reply #4 on:** December 19, 2013, 18:35 »

heywoody · « **Reply #5 on:** December 19, 2013, 19:03 »

To make money at the moment you only need moderately good product but you need a hell of a lot of it and more and more of it to maintain the same level of income as time passes. You may be essentially right though in that this has a much chance of getting contributors to buy in as any of the other "fair play" suggestions. They'll do stocksy though because it seems like an exclusive club and no risk to the "real money" they get from the other sites.

Ed · « **Reply #6 on:** December 19, 2013, 19:23 »

Mark is based in the same area where I live. I have never met him personally, but I am in touch with him, and I've corresponded with him. The reason I know Mark is because I ran across his portfolio at a couple of Micro agencies and I started following his work and his blog. He's a terrific photographer. I happen to share many of the same views that he has, and it's mostly because I started early on...and watched the tides change...and learned the hard way (as I'm sure many have - and I know Mark speaks from his experience as well).

I'll leave it at that.

Uncle Pete · « **Reply #7 on:** December 19, 2013, 19:51 »

Original is by markstout on August 6, 2009. Four years old. And you get minus for pointing that out?

Everyone here should know what an EL pays, the same, regardless of the end users finances. The buyer could be Time Magazine or a some smaller publication. We don't get to charge a higher rate for RF based on who wants the shot.

One of the flaws in the simple pricing scheme of Microstock RF.

Quote from: gostwyck on December 19, 2013, 17:47

That's an ancient blog post about an ancient argument. What's the point in re-hashing it all again?

heywoody · « **Reply #8 on:** December 20, 2013, 17:48 »

Pete,

I pointed out that it was old in the original post so Gostwyck was adding nothing except to "have a go". I didn't give the minus to him (or you either come to that) but maybe someone reacted to a pointless post from someone who regularly does this on posts he regards as pointless.

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Author Topic: Food for thought (Read 3306 times)

heywoody

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gostwyck

heywoody

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Ed

Uncle Pete

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