Good question. I was just thinking about this same thing. I would think that existing customers would buy less due to their customers shelving marketing projects to conserve money. But like you said, some customers from macros may move to micro. Not sure if anyone really knows how this shift would increase/decrease micro sales. Seems a recession would definitely tank macro sales.

Holy doom and gloom Hatman! Interesting perspective though...

A recession would turn more buyers to microstock from macrostock.

Inflation is coming.  It is already bubbling away under the surface.  Prices of hard and soft commodities are rising at a rapid rate.  In the early stages of inflation, manufacturers try to contain price rises to remain competitive.  But eventually they have to give way.  Wheat is up 50% in the last year.  All base and precious metals prices are being driven upwards.  Inflation is coming.

It will appear 'all of a sudden' and interest rates will rise rapidly to try to solve to inflationary problem.

But the instability of the financial system as shown by the 'sudden appearance' of the sub-prime problems a couple of months ago will still be there.  The combination of inflation and high interest rates, coupled with too much debt (and sub-prime debt in particular) will result in a period of hardship.

The impact will be felt globally because of the global nature of money and risk diversification.

Bad times are coming.  They will start in March or July 2012 and last six years.

There won't be a recession until the year 2012.  Between 2012 and 2018 there will be a very deep recession, nearing depression levels.  Interest rates will go up to much higher levels than at present.  Property values will fall 50%, and indeed property values have peaked almost everywhere except Asia.

Stock photography is part of media, marketing and advertising.  These areas are a 'leading indicator' and will start to slow down well in advance of the problems to be experienced in 2012 and beyond.  Expenditure on marketing should start to slow modestly from 2010.

I expect demand for stock photographs to fall by up to 50% during the period 2012 to 2018 after which sales should return to peak levels.

Yes, the inexpensive prices of microstock will help protect sales during the problem period, but they will not be immune - if you like, the problem period will be akin to a summer slowdown except it will last for six years.

Sorry, but that's the way it is.

Sorry, that is just your opinion, not the way it is.  I have seen so many economic predictions go wrong, I no longer believe that anyone can give an accurate forecast.  There could be a recession, there could be a boom, nobody knows and it is a waste of time guessing.

it's going to happen one of these days.

The only thing I can comment on for fact is that wheat has indeed jumped in price, but it is due to several factors; mainly a worldwide shortage:  drought in Australia, fires and North American farmers abandoning wheat crops to plant corn and canola for the purpose of converting to ethanol.    This has a wider impact because more and more crops that were produced for cattle feed or fertilizer is being used for another purpose - which impacts the price of meat, dairy, and other crops.

And what camerab said is right, this industry is still in its infancy and somewhat unknown to office workers making powerpoints or church bulletins.  However, what happens to our collective database when the JPEG technology becomes obsolete? 

There's another interesting question Pixart - what will happen when JPEG images are eclipsed by their replacement format?

I guess there will be an overlap of formats, not an overnight change, but it's really not something we can do anything about now other than recognizing that today's high-quality hi-res images won't always be perceived that way. The millions of JPG stock images will need to be re-shot (subject matter yes, but image format too).

I wonder how soon the day will arrive when a JPG image actually becomes as inaccessible as a WordPerfect 5.1 file, diskette, Zip disk, 8-track cartridge, vinyl LP, or for that matter a B/W negative strip.

Even .BMP files, not so long ago a common format for 8 bit images, I don't think today's web browsers can display the image they contain.

Sorry for the thread tangent, nothing to do with recession.

Maybe in 2012 I would get a broadband connection... and 2012 will be my BOOM year! 

Jpeg seems to be a survivor, just like the fax, which has been obsolete technology almost since it was conceived.

Speaking of fax, I'm very tempted to eliminate ours (the phone line, the machine, everything) within the next few months. 98% of our fax traffic is "fax spam."  But in a few occasions we need it to transfer an analog sheet of paper or signature etc. Sigh.

Microsoft's new JPG replacement proposal - I do have to admin I'm VERY skeptical - Microsoft has almost NO intersection whatsoever with the concept of truly OPEN standards. I agree, if history is any indicator, they're doing it for money and strategic control, not because they care about next generation open standards.

There won't be a recession until the year 2012.  Between 2012 and 2018 there will be a very deep recession, nearing depression levels.  Interest rates will go up to much higher levels than at present.  Property values will fall 50%, and indeed property values have peaked almost everywhere except Asia.
Sorry, but that's the way it is.

Great! I like your crystal ball. Could you advise me also what stock to buy now? ;-)

On a lighter note, I'm more worried about the bad USD-EUR exchange rate. I leave all on Paypal in USD now, in the vain hope the USD would soar against the EUR.