Author Topic: Shutterstock--No Sales in Three Days. (Read 8771 times)

oscarcwilliams · « **on:** August 04, 2017, 12:27 »

I am worried now. I have not had any photo downloads in three days (Including today) on Shutterstock. I can't quite figure out the reason. I have always had many downloads daily, but now this has ceased. Anyone else experiencing this? Thanks.

Noedelhap · « **Reply #1 on:** August 04, 2017, 12:39 »

Three whole days? Sounds like a simple fluctuation to me. It may not happen much, but statistically it's very possible to happen once in a while.

Brasilnut · « **Reply #2 on:** August 04, 2017, 12:47 »

Yea, something is up. This is my last 4 days....and today...

stockmarketer · « **Reply #3 on:** August 04, 2017, 13:25 »

Quote from: Brasilnut on August 04, 2017, 12:47

Yea, something is up. This is my last 4 days....and today...

Statistically speaking, these numbers don't indicate a problem. Fridays are typically lower than Tues - Thurs, so that is more likely a cause for a dip like this.

If you typically get 100 downloads a day, then get 0 today, that is much more statistically significant. But with the current size of the SS total portfolio, going from 15 to 0 doesn't mean anything.

Brasilnut · « **Reply #4 on:** August 04, 2017, 13:40 »

Just sold one so someone must have rebooted the system

Bad Company · « **Reply #5 on:** August 04, 2017, 13:59 »

Quote from: Brasilnut on August 04, 2017, 13:40

Just sold one so someone must have rebooted the system

slow week for sure...

Microstockphoto · « **Reply #6 on:** August 04, 2017, 14:23 »

stockmarketer - nonsense, if you sell on average 15 images per day and then all of a sudden 0 images, then something has changed. Doesnt matter if you go from 100 to 0 or from 15 to 0.

increasingdifficulty · « **Reply #7 on:** August 04, 2017, 14:27 »

Quote from: Microstockphoto on August 04, 2017, 14:23

stockmarketer - nonsense, if you sell on average 15 images per day and then all of a sudden 0 images, then something has changed. Doesnt matter if you go from 100 to 0 or from 15 to 0.

Of course it matters. 1,000 to 0 is something to be concerned about. 15 to 0 happens.

stockmarketer · « **Reply #8 on:** August 04, 2017, 14:29 »

Quote from: Microstockphoto on August 04, 2017, 14:23

stockmarketer - nonsense, if you sell on average 15 images per day and then all of a sudden 0 images, then something has changed. Doesnt matter if you go from 100 to 0 or from 15 to 0.

Ooooookaaaaaay...

What if you average 1 sale on weekdays but get 0 sales on a given Friday. By your logic, that's a 100% decrease and something must be drastically wrong. Truth is that it's statistically insignificant because, well... math.

Bad Company · « **Reply #9 on:** August 04, 2017, 14:31 »

The majority of us can again on one thing- Shutter is sinking and there really isn't much we can do about it... $:-\$

Microstockphoto · « **Reply #10 on:** August 04, 2017, 14:41 »

increasingdifficulty - from 15 to 0 doesnt happen without significant change

stockmarketeer - from 1 to 0 does not have the same odds as from 15 to 0.

Brasilnut · « **Reply #11 on:** August 04, 2017, 14:54 »

I averaged 10 a day in July (slow month), usually it's 12/13 a day.

So 0 in any given day is unlikely but statistically possible. Kinda reminds me of the martingale system in roulette where you put a minimum stake on black/red and double everytime you lose until reaching the table limits. The probability of the same colour showing up 4 times in a row is 5.6%.

Pauws99 · « **Reply #12 on:** August 04, 2017, 17:06 »

Quote from: Brasilnut on August 04, 2017, 14:54

I averaged 10 a day in July (slow month), usually it's 12/13 a day.

So 0 in any given day is unlikely but statistically possible. Kinda reminds me of the martingale system in roulette where you put a minimum stake on black/red and double everytime you lose until reaching the table limits. The probability of the same colour showing up 4 times in a row is 5.6%.

Nope....the probability of red four times in a row is 1/16 similarly black so 2/16 (assuming no 0) 12 1/2%. In any event going from 1000 to 0 is less likely that 100 to 0. The term significant though has a particular meaning for statisticians so serves to confuse.

YadaYadaYada · « **Reply #13 on:** August 04, 2017, 17:19 »

Quote from: Pauws99 on August 04, 2017, 17:06

Quote from: Brasilnut on August 04, 2017, 14:54
I averaged 10 a day in July (slow month), usually it's 12/13 a day.

So 0 in any given day is unlikely but statistically possible. Kinda reminds me of the martingale system in roulette where you put a minimum stake on black/red and double everytime you lose until reaching the table limits. The probability of the same colour showing up 4 times in a row is 5.6%.
Nope....the probability of red four times in a row is 1/16 similarly black so 2/16 (assuming no 0) 12 1/2%. In any event going from 1000 to 0 is less likely that 100 to 0. The term significant though has a particular meaning for statisticians so serves to confuse.

Don't ever go to a casino until you understand probability better. The chance of Red or Black is 16 in 38 every spin. The previous spin has no effect on the future. It can come up 14 times in a row Black and the next time, it's still slightly under 50/50, because of the two greens or one in some countries.

The house edge on a European wheel is on 2.63% and US wheel 5.26% Every spin is an individual event, nothing must come up, just because it hasn't. Of course if I ran a casino I'd be saying how right you are, red five in a row, double your bet on black "it's due".

Now back to microstock. SS isn't dying, our piece of the pie is shrinking. Everyone here has probably read by now that there are 150 Million images now. Growth of 57% last year? 1 million new added each week. A year or two ago, Stockmarketer plainly explained the math. We can't keep up with 1,000,000 new images a week, if we are making 100 a week. I Barely average 400 a month.

Sales are nearly identical for SS but we are dropping? What does that say? More people are getting less sales each, but SS is still making the same number of total sales.

Pauws99 · « **Reply #14 on:** August 04, 2017, 17:58 »

"The chance of Red or Black is 16 in 38 every spin". eh? I believe most roulette wheels are 0-36 so in fact the chance of red is 18/37 black 18/37 zero 1/37 which adds up to 1 which all probabilities do. Therefore the chance of four blacks in a row is 18/37*18/37*18/37*18/37 in the same way as the chance of say red/black/red/black or any other sequence. Correct the balls have no memory so if for example red has come up 14 times it is no more or less likely that it will come up a 15th time things that have occurred in the past have a probability of 1. However a run of 15 reds remains unlikely (but statistically it will happen at some point) ;-). It wouldn't matter if you changed colour Martingale just says double your stake and sooner or later it will come good which is true but you could be bankrupt before it happens.

While I don't think SS is dying I don't think its being run as well as in the past and is overpriced on the stock market. As a business there's plenty worse out there but I would rather put my money on red than buy SS shares at the moment ;-). But they remain my safest bet for selling images.

Dumc · « **Reply #15 on:** August 04, 2017, 21:08 »

Same here, I don't have any 0 days, but numbers are way way down in the first 4 days of august.

PigsInSpace · « **Reply #16 on:** August 04, 2017, 22:19 »

I feel you. The end of July was bad for me, but it ended up being my second best month ever thanks to a couple big sales earlier in the month. It's a crazy world...

Artist · « **Reply #17 on:** August 04, 2017, 23:37 »

My august started well, until yesterday. I got very less downloads yesterday.

sarah2 · « **Reply #18 on:** August 05, 2017, 00:12 »

Something is being tinkered with. My July was truly awful. Like years back. Every day a weekend. I was SERIOUSLY worried. I thought - feared - this would be the new normal.

But August has returned to ticking over. Not great, but certainly not collapsed like last month.

No idea if that provides any comfort. Clearly they are rotating ports or.... something......

But the wheel did turn. Fortunately.

niktol · « **Reply #19 on:** August 05, 2017, 03:05 »

Quote from: Brasilnut on August 04, 2017, 14:54

I averaged 10 a day in July (slow month), usually it's 12/13 a day.

So 0 in any given day is unlikely but statistically possible. Kinda reminds me of the martingale system in roulette where you put a minimum stake on black/red and double everytime you lose until reaching the table limits. The probability of the same colour showing up 4 times in a row is 5.6%.

In a "perfect" unbiased world the number of sales per day would follow the Poisson distribution. That means that the probability of having zero sales on a given day is exp(-average number of sales per day), or exp(-10)~0.0045% in your case. Of course, the world is not perfect and not unbiased, pics are often sold in groups, there is lower buyers' activity on weekends and one cannot discount the SS conspiracy against Brazilian photographers living in Italy.

Pauws99 · « **Reply #20 on:** August 05, 2017, 03:21 »

Quote from: niktol on August 05, 2017, 03:05

Quote from: Brasilnut on August 04, 2017, 14:54
I averaged 10 a day in July (slow month), usually it's 12/13 a day.

So 0 in any given day is unlikely but statistically possible. Kinda reminds me of the martingale system in roulette where you put a minimum stake on black/red and double everytime you lose until reaching the table limits. The probability of the same colour showing up 4 times in a row is 5.6%.

In a "perfect" unbiased world the number of sales per day would follow the Poisson distribution. That means that the probability of having zero sales on a given day is exp(-average number of sales per day), or exp(-10)~0.0045% in your case. Of course, the world is not perfect and not unbiased, pics are often sold in groups, there is lower buyers' activity on weekends and one cannot discount the SS conspiracy against Brazilian photographers living in Italy.

Turning into a statistician's thread ;-). But you are correct statistically..but as you imply the underlying assumptions are not sound as it would need to assume any picture is as likely to sell as any other at any time. But anyway thats one 0 every 222 days so no that rare really. If you were to analyse the weekends separately I'm sure it would be relatively coomon place. Funny how people don't think when they have high sales that SS is manipulating the system....thats down to their brilliant photography of course ;-)

Actually am I wrong.....? .0045% or is it .45% not so sure now

Brasilnut · « **Reply #21 on:** August 05, 2017, 03:33 »

Quote

Funny how people don't think when they have high sales that SS is manipulating the system....thats down to their brilliant photography of course ;-)

This is also known as the 'Headwinds Paradox', interesting paper on the subject:

http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2016-56495-001

Synopsis:

Quote

Barriers and hindrances command attention because they have to be overcome; benefits and resources can often be simply enjoyed and largely ignored. As a result of this “headwind/tailwind” asymmetry, Democrats and Republicans both claim that the electoral map works against them (Study 1), football fans take disproportionate note of the challenging games on their team’s schedules (Study 2), people tend to believe that their parents have been harder on them than their siblings are willing to grant (Study 3), and academics think that they have a harder time with journal reviewers, grant panels, and tenure committees than members of other subdisciplines (Study 7). We show that these effects are the result of the enhanced availability of people’s challenges and difficulties (Studies 4 and 5) and are not simply the result of self-serving attribution management (Studies 6 and 7). We also show that the greater salience of a person’s headwinds can lead people to believe they have been treated unfairly and, as a consequence, more inclined to endorse morally questionable behavior

niktol · « **Reply #22 on:** August 05, 2017, 04:38 »

Quote from: Pauws99 on August 05, 2017, 03:21

But anyway thats one 0 every 222 days so no that rare really. If you were to analyse the weekends separately I'm sure it would be relatively coomon place. Funny how people don't think when they have high sales that SS is manipulating the system....thats down to their brilliant photography of course ;-)

Plus the number of reports of zero sales would increase with the number of active posters. Heck, it didn't happen to me, but boy, am I angry?

Pauws99 · « **Reply #23 on:** August 05, 2017, 05:02 »

Quote from: Brasilnut on August 05, 2017, 03:33

Quote
Funny how people don't think when they have high sales that SS is manipulating the system....thats down to their brilliant photography of course ;-)

This is also known as the 'Headwinds Paradox', interesting paper on the subject:

http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2016-56495-001

Synopsis:

Quote
Barriers and hindrances command attention because they have to be overcome; benefits and resources can often be simply enjoyed and largely ignored. As a result of this “headwind/tailwind” asymmetry, Democrats and Republicans both claim that the electoral map works against them (Study 1), football fans take disproportionate note of the challenging games on their team’s schedules (Study 2), people tend to believe that their parents have been harder on them than their siblings are willing to grant (Study 3), and academics think that they have a harder time with journal reviewers, grant panels, and tenure committees than members of other subdisciplines (Study 7). We show that these effects are the result of the enhanced availability of people’s challenges and difficulties (Studies 4 and 5) and are not simply the result of self-serving attribution management (Studies 6 and 7). We also show that the greater salience of a person’s headwinds can lead people to believe they have been treated unfairly and, as a consequence, more inclined to endorse morally questionable behavior

When I used to do staff/customer surveys and they didn't come out well people would always question the methodology they never did when it was a good result...of course equally likely to be biased in some way ;-). Generally trying to apply meaningful statistical analysis to Mstock is futile as there is little data and most of it is questionable.

niktol · « **Reply #24 on:** August 05, 2017, 05:38 »

Quote from: Pauws99 on August 05, 2017, 03:21

Actually am I wrong.....? .0045% or is it .45% not so sure now

Sorry to have confused you

. Since everyone was citing percentages, I removed two zeros from the actual fraction 0.000045 that I would normally use in relation to 1 being the highest possible probability. It is once every 60 years for one person, but once every seven months for a group of 100 identical photographers.

But we can definitely agree, the underlying assumptions are way off. Several years ago I had my entire portfolio purchased on one day, including some items that never sold on another occasion, so much of a garbage they were. The Poisson probability of this event would be astronomically small. The explanation was simple - it was all acquired by a single entity somewhere in Germany, as judged by the map SS provides. Since then I call mass purchases from my portfolio a "German streak". Not so sure about the phrasing

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Author Topic: Shutterstock--No Sales in Three Days. (Read 8771 times)

oscarcwilliams

Noedelhap

Brasilnut

stockmarketer

Brasilnut

Bad Company

Microstockphoto

increasingdifficulty

stockmarketer

Bad Company

Microstockphoto

Brasilnut

Pauws99

YadaYadaYada

Pauws99

Dumc

PigsInSpace

Artist

sarah2

niktol

Pauws99

Brasilnut

niktol

Pauws99

niktol

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