I'm not tellin'.

Good point Lisa - the competition is already fierce enough on the micros as it is.

On the other hand, the lack of exclusivity our micro 'club' has is also what makes us so different from many of the traditional stock sites. I wouldn't begin to try to parse whether or not that has helped or hurt them, but I do think that feeling of being in an exclusive club of photographers within a site has also created this attitude of superiority among *some* traditional photographers. I've never had much love for elitism (not directed at your statement Lisa...I'm rambling here) for just that reason. I can also see how micros have hurt those who were 'in' on these sites and wrecked the safety they must have once felt.

I don't see one as better than the other...I see them both as opportunities to earn an income doing what I love and a means to pay my bills. As a designer, I don't see their customer base as being equal - micros opened up stock photo options for those with lower design budgets and I'm sure better designs and happier customers have been the result.

Like I said before...rambling here...but when I first decided to shoot stock photography, I never in my wildest dreams imagined the politics I found in the industry. I try to stay emotionally detached to some degree and not get too caught up, but at times it's a bit of challenge. Reading sharply_done's post makes me feel like some folks would love to brand a big ol' scarlet "micro" on my chest so I can easily be avoided in the future. I hope that's not the case for the majority of traditional sites out there as there is so much talent in the world of microstock and as a photographer, there is good reason to want to market to both worlds.

just my buck fiddy and all the usual caveats.

he's a bit precious. all those so called pros are the same.

they need to realise they only survive with their sponsorship from camera companies because of all the sales made to amateurs and semi pros.

without semi pros and amateurs canon and nikon would be dead, and so would the pros.

I would just like to point out that reactions against people like Harrington show the same attitude like they do against microstock.   

Regards,
Adelaide

First there was stock photography and lots of photographers hated it and predicted the demise of photography.
Then there was Royalty Free and lots of photographers hated it and predicted the demise of photography.
Now there is Micro and lots of photographers hate it and predict the demise of photography.

What will likely happen with Micro, as happened in the first two instances above, is that the low value producers will be forced out of the market. As the high end stock producers enter the Micro market the amateur will be brushed aside. It happened with regular stock, it happened with RF and it will happen with Micro. Why fiddle with someone with a 8 MP camera submitting a few images per week or month?

Do not at all agree with John Harringtons rather primitive reasoning but do you really think the micro-boat is  unsinkable?

Not only do I think that the microstock boat is very much sinkable, I think that the sinking of the ship is an inevitability. Just as the sinking of macrostock is also inevitable. It's all part of the cycle. Macro has been on the way out for a long time. Micro is the hot new trend. Eventually, something else will come along to replace micro. Maybe midstock will become the trend, or something we can't even guess at right now.

Just look at the Getty/istock 5-year projections. istock is expected to become an increasingly larger part of the Getty revenue stream, while Getty Images will become a smaller part.

Sure the microstock boat will eventually go the way of macrostock, but not for a long time. I'm thinking more like 7-10 years before we see any decrease.

My guess is that this forum will pretty soon discuss exactly the same issues old school pros discuss since years (shrinking return per image, oversupply of images, ...) 

Sure this will definitely happen. I just hope that anyone with enough of an open opinion about new business models and evolutionary sense enough to have tried microstock in the first place will also be the same sort of people to try whatever comes next. We'll have the same option that the traditional guys have now. We can either sit around waxing nostalgic about the good ol' days of microstock, or move on to whatever comes next. We either stay relevant and with the times, or die off like the current breed of macrostock dinosaurs.