Author Topic: StockUnlimited Brings The Netflix Model To Stock Imagery (Read 19497 times)

bunhill · « **on:** March 13, 2015, 03:06 »

StockUnlimited Brings The Netflix Model To Stock Imagery, Starting With Vector Graphics

Quote

Instead of limiting users to a set monthly allowance, StockUnlimited charges a $9.99 flat fee ...

... If it wasn’t for the team behind it, I’d likely have serious doubts about the company’s plan, which flies in the face of the established (and highly profitable) business model in the stock imagery world. The company’s chairman and lead investor is Andy Sitt, who also founded the successful stock imagery service 123RF. StockUnlimited’s CEO is Christian Toksvig, the former head of business development at Getty Images. These two clearly know how this market works.

Currently, StockUnlimited only features vector images, but the plan is to expand to photos and videos in the third or fourth quarter of this year.

Semmick Photo · « **Reply #1 on:** March 13, 2015, 03:12 »

And this is the disaster waiting to happen

Quote

It probably won’t challenge high-end services like Getty anytime soon (that catalog is hard to beat, after all) and other upstarts like Twenty20 are going after a different market, but it could win over users from the likes of Shutterstock (and/or maybe force them to change their pricing model in the process).

It can only go down.

bunhill · « **Reply #2 on:** March 13, 2015, 03:31 »

Quote from: Semmick Photo on March 13, 2015, 03:12

It can only go down.

The end price of images is inevitably going to zero. With users paying only indirectly for the provision of services.

Except niche and bespoke.

LesPalenik · « **Reply #3 on:** March 13, 2015, 04:11 »

$9.99 a month for unlimited downloads?

Ariene · « **Reply #4 on:** March 13, 2015, 04:13 »

I'm not sure if I understand this new something... Is the idea that client pays once 9,99 (or once a month, doesn't matter much) and downloads unlimited files? It's absurd, which contributor would want this? It's obvious it's agains our business... I don't get it, help anyone?

If yes, if above is correct then... StockUnlimited=one huge market crush!

eyewave · « **Reply #5 on:** March 13, 2015, 04:17 »

I wonder how they will manage to get "over 100,000 new pieces of content every month" (from their FAQ), when no serious stock vector artist will supply, because "It’s exclusive! You’ll never find our content anywhere but on StockUnlimited." (from their FAQ)

objowl · « **Reply #6 on:** March 13, 2015, 04:24 »

All those rejections from the not so serious stock vector artist?

Justanotherphotographer · « **Reply #7 on:** March 13, 2015, 04:25 »

Quote from: eyewave on March 13, 2015, 04:17

I wonder how they will manage to get "over 100,000 new pieces of content every month" (from their FAQ), when no serious stock vector artist will supply, because "It’s exclusive! You’ll never find our content anywhere but on StockUnlimited." (from their FAQ)

You'd think but I have had an 2 approaches recently offering me $15-$20 per image for my portfolio to allow an agency to sell my work without any future payments to me. There have been people on this forum advocating for this kind of deal. These people (was going to use another word) are the ones who allow this kind of model to survive. The agency pays once then sells the work forever.

Anyway, this wont work, just like other industries are finding out, the free model isn't profitable or sustainable for anyone:

http://www.siliconbeat.com/2015/02/26/youtube/
http://www.wsj.com/articles/viewers-dont-add-up-to-profit-for-youtube-1424897967
http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2015/02/27/another-universal-music-digital-executive
http://thetrichordist.com/2014/10/09/who-will-be-the-first-fired-label-execs-over-spotify-cannibalization/

Is the 123RF guy involved still with of 123? the biggest fear is that he will dump all the content from 123 on this new site before we can opt out.

ETA. Also the Netfilx comparison is way off, almost everyone watches movies, most sales of stock images are to businesses. A much smaller market. Most lifting off of Google will be by Joe Public who will never have an interest in paying for content no matter how cheap or "Netflixy" the model.

Mantis · « **Reply #8 on:** March 13, 2015, 07:47 »

Quote from: Justanotherphotographer on March 13, 2015, 04:25

Quote from: eyewave on March 13, 2015, 04:17
I wonder how they will manage to get "over 100,000 new pieces of content every month" (from their FAQ), when no serious stock vector artist will supply, because "It’s exclusive! You’ll never find our content anywhere but on StockUnlimited." (from their FAQ)

You'd think but I have had an 2 approaches recently offering me $15-$20 per image for my portfolio to allow an agency to sell my work without any future payments to me. There have been people on this forum advocating for this kind of deal. These people (was going to use another word) are the ones who allow this kind of model to survive. The agency pays once then sells the work forever.

Anyway, this wont work, just like other industries are finding out, the free model isn't profitable or sustainable for anyone:

http://www.siliconbeat.com/2015/02/26/youtube/
http://www.wsj.com/articles/viewers-dont-add-up-to-profit-for-youtube-1424897967
http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2015/02/27/another-universal-music-digital-executive
http://thetrichordist.com/2014/10/09/who-will-be-the-first-fired-label-execs-over-spotify-cannibalization/

Is the 123RF guy involved still with of 123? the biggest fear is that he will dump all the content from 123 on this new site before we can opt out.

ETA. Also the Netfilx comparison is way off, almost everyone watches movies, most sales of stock images are to businesses. A much smaller market. Most lifting off of Google will be by Joe Public who will never have an interest in paying for content no matter how cheap or "Netflixy" the model.

For me I would dump 123 like a hot potato. I am so done supporting this kind of Schit. To the point where I am willing to lose $130 a month from 123....assuming 123 is a part of this scheme. It wreaks of DPC style of destruction.

sharpshot · « **Reply #9 on:** March 13, 2015, 07:51 »

Will this be any better than the free sites that are full of LCV images that the vast majority of designers wont bother with? Maybe this will get some of the people that only use free images but I doubt it will change the miscrostock world much.

dingles · « **Reply #10 on:** March 13, 2015, 07:54 »

How would contributors get paid with this model? Why would we contribute there?

Semmick Photo · « **Reply #11 on:** March 13, 2015, 08:23 »

Quote from: dingles on March 13, 2015, 07:54

How would contributors get paid with this model? Why would we contribute there?

I was wondering the same

blamb · « **Reply #12 on:** March 13, 2015, 09:25 »

The problem with the internet is that it needs to have a 'Henry Ford Moment', because right now it's very difficult for anyone (besides big companies) to make money on it. If the internet actually recognized the value of work with some reasonable prices for things like stock, ad rates, music, etc., that would give a real boost to the economy. The race to free has done nothing but make EVERYONE poorer.

bunhill · « **Reply #13 on:** March 13, 2015, 11:18 »

Quote from: blamb on March 13, 2015, 09:25

If the internet actually recognized the value of work with some reasonable prices for things like stock, ad rates, music, etc., that would give a real boost to the economy.

The end user price for most images will inevitably get ever closer to zero as supply increases. Supply is unlimited. The inevitable outcome is that many users will, at best, only pay for the curation and delivery of those images as a service. And most likely even these services will come bundled - eg with hosting etc. Bespoke images and niches would be an exception.

The growth of microstock was facilitated by the availability of affordable DSLRs and ubiquitous broadband. Affordable DSLRs made it feasible to relatively easily learn how to produce content which was as good or nearly as good as that from existing much higher priced stock collections. Simultaneously - suddenly lots of little businesses, even churches, clubs etc thought that they needed a website - mostly because in those days lots of people said that they needed a website. And in those days there was a lot of money in making websites which fuelled a demand for relatively inexpensive stock.

Increasingly today those small businesses and organizations have often found that they really only need to keep the website as a placeholder, like a business card. Even many quite large organizations have switched their meaningful interactions with the customers to Facebook and Twitter - and the fresh content they are using is shot with an iPhone or shared by their 'friends'. Most people who upload an iPhone photo to Facebook are not expecting to be paid - they’ll be happy to get a thumbs-up or lots of ‘likes’. This sort of use is inevitably going to account for the majority of image use. And, as microstock gradually ate into previous pricing models, so free and almost is inevitably going to eat into even microstock pricing.

Microstock (from a contributor perspective) probably peaked and then quickly began to decline about the time of the financial crisis - which was, significantly, also soon after the iPhone launched and Facebook introduced business pages. This was also the period when the biggest collections began to grow almost exponentially - with ever more people supplying ever more images. And no evidence that the total market is growing.

——

Meanwhile ad rates seem likely to decline if anything.

A Crisis in Online Ads: One-Third of Traffic Is Bogus - Wall St Journal

Study Puts a Price Tag on Fake Ad Clicks - New York Times

Nearly 25% of 'people' viewing online video ads are robots used by fraudsters - The Guardian

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #14 on:** March 13, 2015, 11:32 »

Quote from: dingles on March 13, 2015, 07:54

How would contributors get paid with this model? Why would we contribute there?

They are operating with wholly owned content, and that's the only way an unlimited subscription model can work.

So what they have is a half a step up from what clipart dot com used to have - which was really awful, but very cheap (Jupiter Images owned it, then Getty bought them, moved some content to iStock so they could mirror it on the PP and then sold the site to someone else). They mirrored only a part of the content and that was borderline at best:

http://www.microstockgroup.com/istockphoto-com/getty-clip-art-'mirroring'-has-begun/

So I looked at the stuff that StockUnlimited has purchased - I assume commissioning some folks in very low wage countries to make them copies of old clipart books that are now public domain, or something of that sort - and this will at best be a niche market. It's just not all that usable.

The problem they'll have if they try to expand to photos is that the low wage countries where they could possible afford to pay someone to generate content for them won't have the models or locations they need to sell the stuff in the US, Europe and Australia.

Supply is unlimited if you don't care what sort of photos or illustrations you accept. It isn't if you want to appeal to a broader corporate audience, ad agencies, etc.

I don't see much of a future for StockUnlimited with this business model - there aren't enough potential customers to make the model work as they've set it up.

Edited to add that the fact that Andy Sitt (123rf) and a former Getty business development exec are behind it doesn't improve its prospects any, IMO. Getty kept trying these ideas to "monetize" the mass of people using freebies in their blogs and such. You'd have to use a lot of blog images to be willing to pay $10 a month, every month, for access to what they offer. The casual user would be better off buying what they need - more choice and less overall expense.

bunhill · « **Reply #15 on:** March 13, 2015, 12:50 »

Quote from: Jo Ann Snover on March 13, 2015, 11:32

the fact that Andy Sitt (123rf) and a former Getty business development exec are behind it doesn't improve its prospects any

It does. If only because their background inevitably improves the prospects of the business with respect to them being able to present a case for funding.

Long term prospects is another thing entirely. But none of the microstock companies have guaranteed long term prospects.

somethingpretentious · « **Reply #16 on:** March 13, 2015, 14:34 »

Yay micro has a similar service. I really dislike how both Yay micro and now StockUnlimited are referring to Netflix and Spotify when talking about their business model. It is not at all the same:

The Netflix and Spotify model is Business to Consumer
StockUnlimited and Yays model is Business to Business

An advertising agency cannot download a song on sportify and use it in a world wide advertising campaign. The comparison is ridiculous.
I

michaeldb · « **Reply #17 on:** March 13, 2015, 19:54 »

Amazon also has a Business to Consumer product where they offer dl of any number of books for a flat fee, but from a subset of the total books on sale, and you can only have the book for a limited time. I cannot think of any IP asset store which sells to businesses and has a flat-fee deal like this. Maybe imagists would submit images which they can't sell anywhere else?

Uncle Pete · « **Reply #18 on:** March 13, 2015, 20:34 »

I don't understand. Do they pay a flat rate, one time for content? How much would someone want to sell a lifetime license to these people? Exclusive? [appears the content is done by hired vector artists?] So it would be exclusive and unique. FOr now...

As Toksvig stressed, though, the idea isn’t to shut other content creators out by only featuring the company’s own content. Instead, StockUnlimited is trying to build a base from which to grow right now — and that growth will soon include content from third-party creators, just like any other stock imagery site.

Really? How much will it pay, that's the question.

(corrections added)
No it's not a Netflix concept at all. Netflix is not [100%] exclusive content, they own ~~nothing~~ very little, they license it and viewers can watch it. The viewers do not COPY, download or reuse the movies.

I watch movies on Netflix, never bothered with an original series, my mistake.

I understand why the $10 unlimited is bad for everyone. Nothing is any good about this concept.

Semmick Photo · « **Reply #19 on:** March 14, 2015, 01:58 »

Quote from: Uncle Pete on March 13, 2015, 20:34

No it's not a Netflix concept at all. Netflix is not exclusive content, they own nothing, they license it and viewers can watch it.

Netflix may not own a lot on Netflix, but they do have exclusive content as well

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_original_programs_distributed_by_Netflix

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-involved-netflix-is-in-production-of-shows-2014-6?IR=T

http://thebestofnetflix.com/the-creativity-of-netflix-a-list-of-all-netflix-original-series/

Hobostocker · « **Reply #20 on:** March 14, 2015, 03:35 »

well, 9.99$ is maybe even too much for those horrible vectors.

i think this is really the rock bottom of stock.

sharpshot · « **Reply #21 on:** March 14, 2015, 05:23 »

Am I the only one that has left a comment at the bottom of the page?
http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/12/stockunlimited-brings-the-netflix-model-to-stock-content-starting-with-vector-graphics/

Justanotherphotographer · « **Reply #22 on:** March 14, 2015, 06:12 »

If you check out the comments a the bottom, looks like they have employees to create the work, the ones on there from Malaysia I think, so contributors are out the loop on this one.

Disturbing trend, I guess returns per image selling on the sites in the traditional way are so low now that it makes more sense for people in countries with low cost of living to work directly for a site making a few backs per hour.

Sean Locke Photography · « **Reply #23 on:** March 14, 2015, 06:35 »

"Toksvig believes that just like Spotify and Netflix made it so easy and cheap to get legal access music and video that piracy wasn’t worth the hassle anymore, StockUnlimited will be able to do the same for graphics and photography."

He's right but he's 10 years too late. iTunes is what made people realize what was legal and what wasn't wirth the hassle and iStock is what made it easy for buyers to license imagery. Ten years ago.

Justanotherphotographer · « **Reply #24 on:** March 14, 2015, 06:56 »

Quote from: Sean Locke Photography on March 14, 2015, 06:35

"Toksvig believes that just like Spotify and Netflix made it so easy and cheap to get legal access music and video that piracy wasn’t worth the hassle anymore, StockUnlimited will be able to do the same for graphics and photography."

He's right but he's 10 years too late. iTunes is what made people realize what was legal and what wasn't wirth the hassle and iStock is what made it easy for buyers to license imagery. Ten years ago.

Exactly right. I think all he's doing is gambling that it is more economical to employ people in lower paying countries to produce content directly for the site than to have to pay contributors royalties. It doesn't have a lot to do with a new model for buyers, subscriptions are in practice unlimited downloads anyway, no one uses up their whole allowance.

MicrostockGroup Sponsors

Author Topic: StockUnlimited Brings The Netflix Model To Stock Imagery (Read 19497 times)

bunhill

Semmick Photo

bunhill

LesPalenik

Ariene

eyewave

objowl

Justanotherphotographer

Mantis

sharpshot

dingles

Semmick Photo

blamb

bunhill

Jo Ann Snover

bunhill

somethingpretentious

michaeldb

Uncle Pete

Semmick Photo

Hobostocker

sharpshot

Justanotherphotographer

Sean Locke Photography

Justanotherphotographer

Related Topics

Sponsors

Microstock Poll Results

Sponsors