Quote from: rinderart on October 05, 2011, 15:13

Im just curious for a discussion on what would you do IF....... all the microsites suddenly dropped there commissions to 20 cents per download Like it was when I joined in 2004. No EL's, No OD's and no subscriptions,No referrals  just 20 cents per download payment.

Would you stay? would you give up? I know we would Pull our hair out but..Bottom line what would you do. Im asking this because i'm fairly confident that whoever left would be replaced in 2/3 weeks willing to accept this and in a short time [A few months] fill the shoes of those that left with some degree of quality and Quantity. Tell me what you think. Or do you think that what you do is that good and can never be duplicated.  Tough question, Just curious.

It depends a lot.
If the agencies start paying only 20 cents but charge only 21 cents to their customers, it might be a really great scenario. On the other hand, if they maintain the current pricing, it would be an absolute killer.

Quote

The microstock market is currently worth about $500M annually

Put aside whether the number is correct or not, but one very important question is: What is the main driver behind that number? Is it the number of pictures needed by the buyers multiplied with the market price (which would mean rasining prices would increase this number)? Or is it fixed budgets by buyers (so changing image prices changes only the number of licences sold, since the money will be spent anyway)?
It surely is somewhere between these extremes, the main question is where?
I tend to believe that a big part of this market is driven not by the individual image price, but rather by restricted budgets of buyers. That means (within certain limits) the price charged to end users will have a bigger influence on the number of images sold than on the total money spent on images.

If that assumption is correct, than for the contributors (as a group) it is a lot more important what royalty percentage we receive from the agencies than what RPD we receive.

So as a conclusion: If prices are lower, but royalties higher, that might be a positive case. While at the same time the argumentation of agencies that lowering royalties is offset by increased prices is flawed - it would only work out if budgets would grow linearly with price increases.

I think the .20 originally paid in the early days of microstock was accepted by contributors because it was literally for found snapshots "sitting on your hard drive". 
If sites went back to that, then the ms pros who spend thousands yearly on equipment and production costs would all leave en masse. 

Almost certainly there would be sites cropping up that paid and charged a more reasonable amount for professional quality work.  Those sites would get the best selling artists, and shortly after, the customers too.  The top micros are not likely to be stupid enough to try such a drastic move. 

We can always count on you as a reasonable voice around here.  

Quote from: rinderart on October 06, 2011, 15:51

Great point which brings up. what is the vast majority of buyers using our work for? who is the bulk of buyers.

I believe bloggers and article writers make up a significant percentage of downloads. But in terms of revenue, I doubt they have nearly the impact that buyers making products, large circulation publications, etc.  Those are the people purchasing XXXL resolutions and Extended Licenses.

Quote from: sharpshot on October 06, 2011, 11:08

I don't understand how people think the smaller sites aren't worth uploading to, because they have so few sales but at the same time they are a threat to the big sites?  Some of the big sites will use any excuse to lower commissions.  If there were less sites, do people really think we would be better off?  They would just think of a different excuse to lower commissions whenever they want to.

I don't understand why this is so difficult to grasp.

I sell my widgets through 4 stores that do great volume, sell at good prices, and give me a fair commission.

When a bunch of new stores open up in the same neighborhood wanting to sell my widgets at a fraction of the price of the established stores, should I:

a) blindly say "Yes indeed, anything to get more sales!!!"
b) realize this would steal business from the stores selling a great deal of my widgets at good prices, and ultimately be a big blow to my own bottom line.

Everyone keeps saying this is about commissions.  Based on Chad's posts here and all my recent emails with people at FT, I believe them when they say it's about image pricing.  Just do the math.  An Emerald's pics at FT will sell for as little as 1/6th the price at a site like DP.   If I were FT, I would be shaking my head and wondering why on God's green earth my suppliers would want to undercut their own sales.