Quote from: gbalex on April 03, 2014, 08:46

Over the last year many older contributors have seen as much as a 70% drop in annual earnings as the sites give their files less exposure in the search. Some of them have seen 30% to 70% overnight drops in earnings as the sites make search changes that no longer give their files exposure in the searches.

Shutterstock has publicly stated that "they have not raised prices to buyers for many years and do not intend to raise prices in the future as a long term strategy to gain market share". This is sustainable for them because their volume is far higher than any producer can ever achieve and they use the new contributor boost carrot to bring in higher numbers of new contributors who earn lower royalties. 

The sad tactics they use to gain market share has been profitable for them but has reduced our earnings potential by diminishing the value of our files while inflation and the need to increase quality and file numbers increases our annual production expenses.

Even the very high volume HCV microstock factories who receive more exposure in the search via extreme file numbers are seeing eroding returns per image over time. Yuri and other factories talk about this quite often and as a result Yuri built his own site and made other strategic changes to limit his exposure to the model long term.

The common perception that producing high number of images to gain search exposure is misguided and false. Large numbers of good quality very HCV files might bring you increased exposure. However the search most certainly penalizes ports with large numbers of LCV images.

I'm not sure if this is related but at Shutterstock the best selling files from 2013 sold about 20% less than the best selling files from 2012.  There are probably a few different ways to interpret that stat.

I don't have any issues man, not that I know at least, can you explain me why the F are your earnings dropping then?

your content isn't LCV, it is obviously HCV, shouldn't you be loaded? unless you are the guy with loads of HCV but no exposure

I have written exactly what you have dude, what is wrong there?

Quote from: Goofy on April 03, 2014, 11:35

Maybe Leaf should consider turning MSG into a drama tv series...

Isn't that what the hearts, minuses, and emoticons have done?

Over the last year many older contributors have seen as much as a 70% drop in annual earnings as the sites give their files less exposure in the search. Some of them have seen 30% to 70% overnight drops in earnings as the sites make search changes that no longer give their files exposure in the searches.

Shutterstock has publicly stated that "they have not raised prices to buyers for many years and do not intend to raise prices in the future as a long term strategy to gain market share". This is sustainable for them because their volume is far higher than any producer can ever achieve and they use the new contributor boost carrot to bring in higher numbers of new contributors who earn lower royalties. 

The sad tactics they use to gain market share has been profitable for them but has reduced our earnings potential by diminishing the value of our files while inflation and the need to increase quality and file numbers increases our annual production expenses.

Even the very high volume HCV microstock factories who receive more exposure in the search via extreme file numbers are seeing eroding returns per image over time. Yuri and other factories talk about this quite often and as a result Yuri built his own site and made other strategic changes to limit his exposure to the model long term.

The common perception that producing high number of images to gain search exposure is misguided and false. Large numbers of good quality very HCV files might bring you increased exposure. However the search most certainly penalizes ports with large numbers of LCV images.

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on April 03, 2014, 07:20

I think the biggest problem of all is that earnings tend to erode over time, and sooner or later earnings will start to fall faster than you can possibly upload to keep your income as it is.

What that means is that unless you are able to earn much more than the minimum you need to live on, you will need to find other ways to add to your income. If you don't, you will gradually become poorer and poorer as time goes by.

Also, the time it takes to build a portfolio is also time that reduces the value of images. If you are making 10c per picture per month now, by the time you have 6,000 pictures online you will probably only be making 7.5c per picture. Six or seven years from now, when you have 12,000 online, they will probably only be making 5c per file - and another five years on it may only be 3c.

I'm experiencing the opposite. As my files age, the popular ones are becoming even more popular with increasing number of downloads/day as their search placement gets more and more solid. When they start to sell they go from few downloads a week to downloads every day, and when it gets to 2 or more downloads / day, they almost always end up getting 8-10+, 20 downloads every day.... which is logical because every sensible search engine takes it's hints form the customers' actions. So actually when I told myself that this isn't as profitable as it's supposed to be, a whole bunch of files started making a more and more money as they got old enough. This also means that new files coming in to the site have little / no effect on popular files because search preference is coming frome individual image's merits, and the head start those have is actually increasing with time.

Norway? Massive taxes and benefits, from what I heard. I'll be heading for Greece in due course. $1,000 goes a long way in Greece.

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers link=topic=22331.msg373544#msg373544

Norway? Massive taxes and benefits, from what I heard. I'll be heading for Greece in due course. $1,000 goes a long way in Greece.

Finland. Not quite as expensive as Norway, but on-par with Sweden. Massive taxes (good benefits tho).
Average salary 3109 euros/month (about $4200)
Median salary 2774 euros/month (about $3800)

To live like an average Joe and pay for equipment and pension I would need to sell stock images for at least $5000 per month, and I don't seem to be able to do it. But if I moved to Poland or Estonia I could do it instantly.

Quote from: gbalex on April 03, 2014, 08:46

Over the last year many older contributors have seen as much as a 70% drop in annual earnings as the sites give their files less exposure in the search. Some of them have seen 30% to 70% overnight drops in earnings as the sites make search changes that no longer give their files exposure in the searches.

Shutterstock has publicly stated that "they have not raised prices to buyers for many years and do not intend to raise prices in the future as a long term strategy to gain market share". This is sustainable for them because their volume is far higher than any producer can ever achieve and they use the new contributor boost carrot to bring in higher numbers of new contributors who earn lower royalties. 

The sad tactics they use to gain market share has been profitable for them but has reduced our earnings potential by diminishing the value of our files while inflation and the need to increase quality and file numbers increases our annual production expenses.

Even the very high volume HCV microstock factories who receive more exposure in the search via extreme file numbers are seeing eroding returns per image over time. Yuri and other factories talk about this quite often and as a result Yuri built his own site and made other strategic changes to limit his exposure to the model long term.

The common perception that producing high number of images to gain search exposure is misguided and false. Large numbers of good quality very HCV files might bring you increased exposure. However the search most certainly penalizes ports with large numbers of LCV images.

I never ever experienced any 'sudden overnight drops'. Only the regular fluctuations according to season/holidays, etc. I suspect you are taking your hints from certain 'SS forum superstar' contributors, who's portfolios don't seem to be noticed by their fans for actually being a piss-poor collection of photography "don't do"-s.


I don't think the search penalizes ports for anything, I think the search simply doesn't do anything to 'ports', because it only works on individual images.... regardless of their source. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's extremely unlikely. Just doesn't make any sense.