When i started doing stock photography 11 years ago i took a year before that and studied, learned and practice so i would get good results. There was not so much info online and i am a book guy anyway so i started with some good nice lecture. After a while of uploading and reaching 10000 online files the cash flowing from stock agencies was really good 2-3 salaries in a really good country. Somewhere around the road i started checking some stock forums and different websites where people were actually telling newbies what to do and how to jump over some extremely important steps that took me a lot longer to learn by my own. Everybody started doing stock photo, agencies were flooded and now with over 20k photos online the monthly paycheck cant even cover a low rent. This is the fault of everybody not caring for his business and teaching others = competition tips and tricks. In no business  you tell others secrets. Or you encourage them to do something what you do. This friendliness act got us where we are today as stock photography and thats a hole with no future. Hope everybody learned something from this for the next business they may have

When i started doing stock photography...

This is a good summary of what happened in the last few years, but - as Roscoe - I'm not sure about your proposed cause (teaching newbies secrets). We can't - and shouldn't - stop technology and the new kids on the block.

A personal story: although I never published any guide online, I invited many friends of mine (about 20) to join stock photography and even actively helped them prepare the photos to pass the Shutterstock test when it was actually difficult (7/10) - and they passed it at first try. But only a couple of them continued uploading at least for a while, and only one of them is still somehow active. Most found stock boring and not "artistic" enough, which is fine.

So it takes a lot more than spilled secrets... It takes a lot of work and only the most motivated people did and will succeed. With or without our help.

There are a lot of reasons why microstock is nowhere near as lucrative as it once was.

Perhaps what you're criticizing has also contributed a bit. But that's the smallest problem from my point of view.

A couple of the factors have already been correctly listed by Roscoe and somewhere. To complement this would be

Contributors who offer at free agencies or in free selections - that is the main problem. The self-made devaluation of the own work. Or because the hall of fame is more important to them than the money they could earn.

The fact that there is too little money to be made with microstock to have their own images, concepts and ideas protected by legal authorities.

Because agencies accept thousands of images with copied ideas and concepts every day.

Because microstock is a global market that does not take into account different costs of living.

The fact that agencies no longer have a reasonable selection process carried out by expert staff, because the flood of submitted images is simply too great.

And many many more reasons.

I've been helping, teaching, private tutoring, writing, and counselling people for years, not just here but in my other line of work, and found that the bottom line is: you can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink.  For lots of different reasons.

In microstock, it takes a lot of effort, time, lateral thinking, willingness to change, plus special circumstances and access to resources, and often a special type of personality**, to earn $20k or $30k+ USD a year from stock. Many just do not have the time, or are willing to go that extra mile. Justifiably too, because its darn hard work. Even back in the 'golden' years.

The golden years, however, was broken back in 2017/18 when SS opened up their agency to a huge influx of people, lowered their acceptance from 7/10 to 1, and lowered their reviews - for one main reason - to compete with Getty by having the largest database. Quality went out the window, quantity came in. It was just part of the industry changes at that time, and I am not criticising anyone for taking advantage of it.

I still like helping people, because it's ingrained in me, but its definitely, absolutely, NOT the reason that stock is 'dead' (as the OP put it). And besides, Microstock is not dead - its just a lot tougher.

** And willingness to take responsibility for your own actions - and not blame others. (you can blame occasionally. But don't make it a habit)

If you carefully browse the collections, you realize that maybe 90% is copies of copies of copies. And especially with localized subjects there is a huge amount of content missing.

Yes! Yes! Yes!

There is still so much missing from the databases. I find it all the time. Just scroll through Pinterest and Instagram and look at what everyone is liking or getting excited about, and look back in the agencies databases, and its just not there. You've got to appeal to the new millennial generation, who are the driving force now. If you're a baby boomer, or gen x, then you might have to change what you shoot. Advertisers follow what's popular on social media, and so should stock photographers.

There you go, OP, we're just giving more advice. 

There is some kind of evolution in stock photography. First there was RM images. Then came RF. The further evolution was RF microstock.
In early times image quality at microstock was poor but improved over the years.
The next evolution is free images. If you still want to make money with stock photography you should find a way to make money with free images.

Quote from: Annie on July 01, 2022, 16:42

The golden years, however, was broken back in 2017/18 when SS opened up their agency to a huge influx of people, lowered their acceptance from 7/10 to 1, and lowered their reviews - for one main reason - to compete with Getty by having the largest database. Quality went out the window, quantity came in. It was just part of the industry changes at that time, and I am not criticising anyone for taking advantage of it.

Thanks for all your help and others who study and plan and watch trends. You've written that before and you are 100% right. This is now, that was then. My same images that were "good enough" in 2010 are now nothing but filler. Files that sold the same day as they were uploaded and some kept selling, now get no sales at all.

Should I blame someone else or maybe the market and the competition and the quality of some of the current submissions, which are better than 12 years ago?

I think lowering the reviews is more of a problem than who gets let in. Are we some exclusive elite club? If the reviews were the same and some places they are, it doesn't matter if anyone passed a test or not, because the images would still need to pass. But true, reviews are not what they were, yet better images will sell. They just are harder to find than the common copies and imitations.

I have one answer and it's not secrets. Numbers and competition are nothing like they used to be. It's much more difficult and the images need to be timely and high quality. People made a living and paid for their mortgage or for their kids to go to school, using a P&S and shooting tabletop or family members at home. Those days are gone.

Times change and the market changed.

Oh that, and we can sell just as many licenses as years ago, but the pay is pocket change and inconsistent?

thanks for your response, Pete. Here are some of mine to yours that I've bolded.

1. If you're referring to your old editorials, then that is probably understandable. Otherwise, I would say, it depends on what you shoot.

2. Blame is a natural human response to anger. When people are angry there is a tendency to go straight to blame, but that will just keep you stuck. I understand that a lot of people are angry with some agencies changes since 2020, because the status quo was changed dramatically. They pulled the rug out from a lot of people's feet. But you can't make proactive decisions if you are stuck in blame. That's all I meant. 

At first, I got angry with the introduction of video subs, but I am to blame because my video port is too light on the subject matter that gets higher returns.  Once again it depends on what you shoot.

3. Well, yes. Kind of  (ie photographers, videographers, illustrators) lol (maybe not so elite  )

4. Yes, I paid off my mortgage with mainly tabletop photos. But still shooting them, and they are still selling. Once again, it depends on what you shoot.

5. My RPD for photos is still the same. So maybe, just maybe, it depends on what you shoot. 

Attached is a screen grab that I posted on another thread but took it down. They are all photos subs from SS.  If people are getting mostly 10c subs, then maybe they should change their plan? Leave, don't upload, upload to AS only, try selling photos via other outlets, or yes, change what they shoot.

For me, the whole "decline" should not be any sort of surprise. Digital technology and mass submissions across every available platform mean that there is a flood of "good enough" images that make it appear that the industry is bursting at the seams. The agencies simply take advantage of that. If it were me choosing, people would submit their photos and have the option of earning their way up the ranks via sales (the only thing that matters) or get dumped in the freebie bin if it was good enough for that. Do you guys remember the early affiliate sites? Free but mostly terrible images on top, then paid links to an agency below. I think it was the best way for it to work, people could see the difference.

Most of the photos for sale online (also just my opinion, and including many of my own) are overpriced at "free". They wouldn't even get in to the freebie sites. Because of that, what matters most now more than ever is good keywording to ensure your work gets seen before a buyer gets bored. There are so many ways agencies could let the cream rise to the top, but instead they just chase the decreasing royalty payments to make up losses. Weren't these companies supposed to be innovators? Put an "exclude this artist" button on the (paid) sales side and we'd see most of the spammy crap vanish overnight. And seriously, if google can find similars in less than a second, then agencies can compare submissions to the rest of the databases before acceptance. Same with metadata that includes words like "unsplash" or "pixabay", I mean really... So it takes longer maybe, but it would get rid of a lot of thieves and duplicators too.

As for those free sites everyone loves to bash, I've belonged to a few to see what they are about, so I could make knowledge-based decisions regarding them. They have vibrant discussion groups where people share info to advance the craft of photography. Many, many of them, when looking at micro (comes up every so often), say "why bother for pennies" and when someone has only a few photos or even a hundred or so, its a valid argument. They are as disdaining of us as many here are of them. They do put up beautifully artistic works and curation is great, but when it comes to "stock", they don't offer that much in terms of competing with serious microstockers. Although some actually do make money through donations or advertising their stock portfolios.

They way I look at micro nowadays is like if its a sandcastle contest. Everyone and anyone can build one. Some spend a lot of money to make awesome ones, some use great creativity, and some ensure they are at that right tidal level, near the judges, and have a good-enough one to get noticed. The rest just take up space and cry about everyone else. I think the bigger successful agencies shot themselves in the foot from the get-go with their "all photos are equal" mindset. They are not, and every day we submitters fool ourselves into thinking every picture has value. If it doesn't sell, no one cares if you spent ten hours on it or ten seconds.

I think (and hope) we'll see a resurgence in niche agencies for exclusive artists or content. I know there are plenty of RM ones out there already, but I suspect as more and more good shooters lose incentive and stop, they'll pop up for exclusive RF content. Stuff that takes effort and/or money to make, well, that will become harder and harder to find and we'll possibly see the supply side become valuable again (at least for editorial and maybe time-themed submissions). At least, I can hope that will happen. In the meantime, there is still money on the table for smart, knowledgeable submitters. Every niche and subject is fair game, and the only failure to find new ways or ideas for over-done stuff is our own.

Thank you for attending my Ted talk.

@annie, you get me

I spend a lot of time doing test searches and it is amazing how much is missing. Even in popular subjects like flowers and food.

I am currently in the process of rebuilding my ports, the only difference is I am doing a lot more editorial than before,

A niche is easy to find. But images at microstock should have potential for high volume sales.
Thats is often not the case at niche images.

I think it depends on the niche and what "high volume" is to the shooter. I have two niches that do quite well for me, but one doesn't even register as a statistic for agencies. They look at millions of sales and can point out what works for them, but something that only gets under a hundred sales a day, well, I never hear them talk about it. But for me, a few dozen daily sales (when I kept active and current) of one thing that I pretty much have the most diverse portfolio of, works for me.

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Good points

It's funny, Terry & Annie, but five minutes ago on the subject of "niche" in another form I wrote this:

"At Adobe this week, I sold an image five times, which makes me wonder. Five times is nothing special per se. But: the photo shows a sky with clouds. Nothing else. There are 43 million results for the search term "sky". Countless of them are many times more spectacular and interesting. And yet mine has now made it to the second page of search results for "sky". I'm always amazed that very general images that don't cover any niches still somehow manage to get to the front. With 153 downloads, it's in 57th place in my portfolio. Now I'm curious to see how this develops. Because sky is always needed. But the algorithm has to do a lot to make sure that it can be found at all - and currently seems to be well-disposed towards me in this respect. Maybe it'll become a real bestseller someday."

Why the image is rated so well by the algorithm is an absolute mystery to me. But this much is clear: luck is also a very important factor.

Yes, Wilm. I agree. Luck is important on individual images. But, according to my experience and observations, overall performance of a whole portfolio is based on a number of consistent factors that is definitely under the control of the contributor.

You are a great photographer with very well executed images, and from what I remember from your port, you also have a lot of other images with high demand and  not a lot of competition, especially to the quality of what you are offering. That is consistent throughout your port, and why I would say, you do so well overall. 

There are a lot of different ways to succeed in this business (some by having a lot of images, some by having a lot less, some by being different, some by being better), and fortunately, a lot of them can be controlled by the photographer. Agencies and algorithms have a lot of power over us, but I truly believe that we have more power than most of us realise.