From my short stint in the Micro world I can see that the business is far from settled. The first to succumb to the competitiveness is LO.  Judging from reported earnings here and on other forums, others must be struggling as well. Although Micro is a growth industry it seems that just putting up a site doesn't guarantee success. Like the business of Macro RF, there is so little to distinguish the various sellers. Everyone seems to try and get images up on the biggest sites and a few small ones. IS has an exclusivity option that some photographers use, giving them an substantial edge over the others. No one in their right mind would submit exclusively to a smaller Micro. The one Micro I don't understand is Snap Village; not because they picked the absolute stupidest name you could think of, but because I have to believe that they actually had money to set up a proper a site. Something that they have failed to do in a big way. If Bill Gates can't afford to set up a decent site, who can? Yet they flounder around like an ftp upload is analogous to a trip to Pluto. Come on Snap Village, quit looking like a bunch of inept amateurs and do something real or just drop it. I can't believe Corbis can't make themselves a force in the Micro market. As for iStock, they have a bizarre policy that precludes any old time shooters from going exclusive. I can't imagine why, if IS could, wouldn't sign on big name shooters exclusively. Asking to drop all previous RF images from market is both committing financial suicide and impossible. Many RF contracts that involve CDs and multiple resellers can be as long as 20 years. So even if someone wanted to go exclusive they can't drop the images from market. Of course why anyone would do that is beyond me. It just strikes me as odd that a business would adopt a policy that disallows some of best and largest producers in the industry from submitting only to them.

Consolidation in this industry is good for submitters and buyers, so the more sites that close their doors the better off we are. More buyers and sellers at a few established sites means less time wasted uploading to 10 different sites.

I have to agree- to a point.  I do think 5 or 6 would be necessary to avoid the hazards of monopoly that are mentioned in another thread.  But yeah, 15 or 20 is totally unnecessary and spreads buyers and payouts too thin.

Any bets on who's next to go? (My money's on CanStockPhoto.)

Does it make any sense of dollars and cents, to close an account if you are at recieving payouts?
Albeit maybe every 3 to 4 months, but hell it's found money you would otherwise not have.

It makes more sense to stop contributing, rather than closing down an account that pays even slow dividends.
Sometimes, I find it difficult trying to figure out how others think. How come everyone don't think like I do?
If everyone thought like me....this would be a perfect world for me to live in.

Cranky MIZ

"and quits, the company gets to pocket all of the remaining commission."

Your argument indicates "SOME" sites. So you don't mean all.
I said sites that you receive a regular a regular payout i.e. every 3 to 4 months.

Clearly, there is a exception to every rule. I quit LO after being a contributor for over a year, no payout, and only
$20 in my account and another $80 to go. Yes, In my case I fell within the example you gave donating my $20.

Cranky MIZ

Does it make any sense of dollars and cents, to close an account if you are at recieving payouts?
Albeit maybe every 3 to 4 months, but hell it's found money you would otherwise not have.

You know, Miz, I used to think the same thing, but no, it isn't found money.  It is money I work my a$$ off to earn and the payout is beyond pathetic.   

This is a FT business for me and I run it like one.  Having just paid my taxes, all the time I have to spend doing accounting and keeping track of sales stats for each site is fresh in my mind.  And that's in addition to all the work uploading 50+ images a week.

It takes equal clerical work and uploading for each site, regardless of return.  (actually, with canstock's lousy stats display, it takes more work for them than many of the others)

Canstock has been 0% of my earnings for months now (and never more than 1% before that) .  For the amount of work it takes to upload 50 or so images there every week it is REALLY not worth the effort anymore.  With over 3500 images I don't earn enough money to buy a lousy Starbucks latte a week.

I do my part to upload good content to these sites.  They need to do their part to provide a viable marketplace for our images.  If they aren't doing their part then they don't get to make money off my hard work anymore.

And Dan is right on the money about the problems that people have had leaving images on non-viable sites.  The stories of lost money and locked-in images at LO and Albumo are enough to suggest it's best to "git while the gittin's good" 

I do my part to upload good content to these sites.  They need to do their part to provide a viable marketplace for our images.  If they aren't doing their part then they don't get to make money off my hard work anymore.

If ever you needed a compelling reason to dump the losers it's contained in the above paragraph. Checking and uploading costs time and money and it's as simple as that. If the return doesn't match the input - allowing for a reasonable saturation period - well then bye bye!