Maybe I'm overly optimistic, but I think there are a couple of things that will keep us in business as producers. I could see this becoming less "passive" income though over the long run.

I think that right now subscription agencies have a huge pool of stock media to purchase from since the model is fairly new, but stock footage has been produced and available for a long time. Since there is so much older content that footage producers have already seen a return on, we might be willing to sell it off for a one-time fee. As this pool decreases though the value for new footage would go up and subscription services will have to pay more for new content. Demand for 4K and maybe even 6K, 8K will increase as well. If too many producers stop producing and footage production drops too much they'll be in a tight spot, as their libraries won't stay current.

I think the result of all of this would be that we would be working more on a fixed fee basis, or more and more of a mixed basis. If I know that an agency will buy 100 clips of mine for $30 each, that would probably make a one day stock shoot worth doing. The tricky part is that if it remains speculative, where there is no guarantee they will want your footage, it would be harder to stay in the game as the risk would be so high.

I think a mix of subscription and market still makes the most sense for agencies (in relation to their bottom line, not necessarily ours...). It gives them the ability to see what content sells best before buying it. This would also still give us producers an incentive to list in marketplaces, knowing that we would see some return before the content was purchased for subscription.

That's a long thought, getting back to your first question - I would try to keep producing the highest quality, in-demand, footage as possible for as little time and money as possible. That simple. If the prices drop too much, I'd move on, but considering that my earnings outside of subscription markets over the last year and a half have been growing really quickly, I don't see day zero coming anytime soon.

Quote from: SuperPhoto on February 24, 2018, 02:30

Quote from: cthoman on February 24, 2018, 00:07

Does the answer of do something else work? It's kind of difficult to avoid what is happening in microstock. You kind of have to either find something else or ride it out to wherever it goes.

Yes. I know something needs to be done - so wondering what your thoughts are on how to adapt.

If you have the interpersonal skills and like people then I think the way to go is providing courses workshops etc.......I often see courses advertised my way for what I regard as outrageous prices for very basic tuition. There's lots of talk at the moment of people buying "experiences". Image production is just getting cheaper and cheaper with more and more competition....don't see it getting any more lucrative.

Similar to the old advice about the most-reliable way to make money from a gold rush: don't go digging for gold yourself, but instead sell picks and shovels to miners.

Quote from: namussi on February 24, 2018, 05:44

Similar to the old advice about the most-reliable way to make money from a gold rush: don't go digging for gold yourself, but instead sell picks and shovels to miners.

Yes....... so... what would be the picks & shovels in this case from a content producer perspective?

Quote from: namussi on February 24, 2018, 05:44

Similar to the old advice about the most-reliable way to make money from a gold rush: don't go digging for gold yourself, but instead sell picks and shovels to miners.

Yes....... so... what would be the picks & shovels in this case from a content producer perspective?