Dear colleagues,

I've just published this blog post on a trend that I potentially see occurring soon (hope I'm not giving these agency decision-makers any ideas):

During the past six months, most notably, Wirestock and Picfair have dropped their respective statuses as �free to upload stock agencies� in what is a potentially significant trend for contributors. In this blog post I�ll discuss whether this business model will become more commonplace and if it may present itself as a threat to contributors� income in a time when we�re already experiencing diminishing returns coupled with rising inflation. Or perhaps, this fee will be an opportunity!

https://brutallyhonestmicrostock.com/2023/07/13/will-contributors-soon-have-to-pay-microstock-agencies-to-host-their-content/

Alex

It makes sense for a contributor to pay the agency a monthly hosting fee, but it should be proportional to the portfolio's size.

Up to 5GB - free
Up to 100GB - $2/month
Up to 2TB - $10/month

If the agencies charged contributors fees for hosting but then paid out 100% of sales it could be a very good for active productive good producers.

Of course the agencies will only add it onto their huge take of every sale and try to spin it as something exciting. Also maybe they will have some sort of premium plan where you pay even more to get a boost in search.

There are so many ways the agencies could weed out crap and spam, but based on what they do it doesn't really seem to be a concern for them.

No.  We did that in 2004.  It was called ShutterPoint or something.  You can tell how well that worked out.

Photo Shelter and 500 Pix had similar things didn't they? Didn't work well.

Nimia has a pay tier that allows some perks for sales.

Photo Shelter and 500 Pix had similar things didn't they? Didn't work well.

Nimia has a pay tier that allows some perks for sales.

It is better not to contact Nimia, do not ship anything there. I uploaded part of my video there a few years ago, and a year later Nimia deleted everything, without explanation.

The Microstock Agencies could start pruning the unused content: If you photo was not sold during last year, it will be deleted.

Getty used to do this - it was called Photographer's Choice.

Back then you could make so much from a good, useful image that it may well have been worth it.

I remember, something like 50 dollars per image  to get it accepted into that collection.

But at the time you would make the money back easily.

People paid thousands to have files included.

All the reasons you wrote seem to benefit serious contributors: less competition, discouraging theft, etc.

But what advantages over other agencies will an agency get from doing that? I think having less images is not it unless it is an exclusive agency. But even then, what advantages over other exclusive agencies will it get?

All the reasons you wrote seem to benefit serious contributors: less competition, discouraging theft, etc.

But what advantages over other agencies will an agency get from doing that? I think having less images is not it unless it is an exclusive agency. But even then, what advantages over other exclusive agencies will it get?

One advantage would be to immediately improve their cash-flow. Even a modest sum of $10/month times let's say 200,000 opted-in contributors (is that how many SS have, I'm estimating now) is $2million per month. They would be wise to remove this fee from the earnings every month so it hurts less. Perhaps those earning less than $10/month can be excluded until they do earn enough. So many ways to spin this.

This is like: The agencies will make money even when you're not making any money.

Doesn't sound like a good deal to me.

Quote from: Brasilnut on July 16, 2023, 07:56

Quote from: flywing on July 16, 2023, 02:32

All the reasons you wrote seem to benefit serious contributors: less competition, discouraging theft, etc.

But what advantages over other agencies will an agency get from doing that? I think having less images is not it unless it is an exclusive agency. But even then, what advantages over other exclusive agencies will it get?

One advantage would be to immediately improve their cash-flow. Even a modest sum of $10/month times let's say 200,000 opted-in contributors (is that how many SS have, I'm estimating now) is $2million per month. They would be wise to remove this fee from the earnings every month so it hurts less. Perhaps those earning less than $10/month can be excluded until they do earn enough. So many ways to spin this.

Do you really think 200,000 contributors would opt in? I mean, let's take a poll on how many people pay wirestock for their premium service here. I think you might get the answer. Not many.

The agencies know this and so would never do something like this. Anyway, the game has moved on to getting as many images as possible in the database for the AI to learn and getting that many images for data use would be impossible if they begin charging contributors for uploading.

Most of the 200,000 (?) would not opt-in, but what choice would they have if the agency in an "Exciting News" kind of way gives notice that it's either pay up or deleted. I also think it's unlikely (although not impossible) that the major players (SS, AS, iStock and Alamy) would do this but I can see if happening with the smaller outfits.

Yes, Ai is a game-changer and lots of data training going on behind the scenes, while the contributors get breadcrumbs.

i was on WS from  the start, dealing w their terrible review process & multiple bugs in submitting process (they'd keep playing whack-la-bug with interface w/o bothering to test what its effects were on the rest of the interface.

so i never considered paying more for a 'premium' service so i stopped uploading - and now they ONLY have a premium & NO free submissions

Dear colleagues,

I've just published this blog post on a trend that I potentially see occurring soon (hope I'm not giving these agency decision-makers any ideas):

Quote

During the past six months, most notably, Wirestock and Picfair have dropped their respective statuses as �free to upload stock agencies� in what is a potentially significant trend for contributors. In this blog post I�ll discuss whether this business model will become more commonplace and if it may present itself as a threat to contributors� income in a time when we�re already experiencing diminishing returns coupled with rising inflation. Or perhaps, this fee will be an opportunity!

https://brutallyhonestmicrostock.com/2023/07/13/will-contributors-soon-have-to-pay-microstock-agencies-to-host-their-content/

Alex

Hi Alex I think will never happens to me, I just close my Pic ,,UN,, fair account today and I am not really planing paid for selling my images or footage in future. 

i was on WS from  the start, dealing w their terrible review process & multiple bugs in submitting process (they'd keep playing whack-la-bug with interface w/o bothering to test what its effects were on the rest of the interface.

so i never considered paying more for a 'premium' service so i stopped uploading - and now they ONLY have a premium & NO free submissions

What I find on their contributor portal:

You can get 300 free monthly marketplace submissions only if your approval rate is 85% or above.
Any new creator joining the platform will get 20 free marketplace submissions until their approval rate is calculated.

Not sure though how many smaller contributors are still uploading there. From what I hear, free submissions take months to get reviewed.

Thanks for the reply. Addressing just a few quick comments:

a) Re: the headline, it is very sensationalistic with a lot of presuppositions built into it - and yes, click-baity.. While "yes" - it may get people to "click" on it now - if you continued to have headlines like that - it would hurt your credibility long run. There is a small group of people here (versus the 'masses' that read mainstream), and people here I would say are a little smarter than say people who read "mainstream news" (which uses clickbait headlines almost ALL the time), and they'd quickly figure things out. Yes - I did click on it this time - but I guess why I felt I had to comment, is the article didn't seem as good as some of your previous ones. So wanted to help you out/i.e., constructive criticism.

b) Gmail/hotmail only really introduced that when they literally had tens of millions of users. It is/was a "free" service (not really free, because they had a very 'viral' (at that time) way of promoting hotmail by adding a tagline to each e-mail that was sent out (somethnig like 'Sent with hotmail.com - Get your free account).
Their business model is different from stock.

With most of the stock sites - you get paid for your submissions. With (general) e-mail - you don't get paid for sending/composing it. The agencies have a business model that is working (quite profitability) for them. Essentially - people work for free creating content (no guarantee anyone will purchase anything through an agency), agency (& contributor) only benefits when a sale is made, and its very low cost to host that content. Yes - the agencies (initially) had to do massive marketing to get customers, and do some degree still need to (set aside a portion for paying for continued marketing, curators, storage, etc) - but once you have the paying customers - after that it pretty much starts to become a relatively fixed cost, it's all pretty much pure profit afterwards.

I don't believe they would want to upset that highly lucrative business model. Their business model works - "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". They do benefit (i.e., SS) from the massive uploads. A sale is better than no sale (part of the reason shutterstock doesn't care if their are "stolen" accounts, they are very unethical in a number of different areas - but that's one reason they don't really care - money). Some agencies are more honest than others. Charging a fee - while yes - probably would get rid of the massive influx of 'get rich quick' accounts (many of which are eastindian) - would also get rid of a lot of the 'low hanging fruit' sales (that can be quite lucrative in themselves). Doesn't make sense business-wise to do that.

Took a look at picfair - wasn't really all that familiar with it. They are not really a "microstock" agency - rather - kind of like a 'gallery' site. They also sell physical items (i.e., prints), take a 20% commission (on top of the seller's selling price). Kind of a mishmash of a few different types of sites. (Looks like they were part of the y-combinator program too). So it is a different business model - "borrowing" from existing successful models and trying something a little different. If their revenue figures are accurate (i.e., googlewise) - they aren't really yet all that successful.

c) Inflation is a different topic. Inflation is when the govt prints massive amounts of money, diluting (aka stealing) people's purchasing power.  (More specifically, the people that own the banks printing money out of thin air (fiat currency/monopoly money) and then do usury by "lending" at high interest rates that for the govt to print, and then convincing people to use their monetary 'notes'). Taxation, inflation, etc is essentially theft, two sides of the same coin. If you made $1000 in 2000, it is very different from $1000 in 2020 in terms of what it can purchase. (Aka 'purchasing power'). That is because of manufactured inflation.

Because of this (intentional) inflationary theft - many people's focus has shifted to purchasing other things (i.e., food, water, electricity, gas, etc). Part of why the subscription model started to take off - because 20 years ago it actually was more "affordable" to say pay $100 for a single image. But with the "inflation" - it became less affordable - so the subscription model became much more so. Of course, the subscription model also made it more 'affordable' to lower-income individuals/businesses - so more customers too.

The idea of "correcting" income (via govt edicts, which again - are actually made by the bankers, dictating policy via monetary influence) is also kind of bogus/manufactured - and in some ways designed also to try and keep people as 'taxslaves'. "Correcting income" (i.e., minimum wage, or 'guaranteed income') is not natural, they are control mechanisms. You don't "correct income" in a free market - you produce better content, provide better value, supply/demand/etc.

d) Re: "AI". It's not true "AI" in what the word was originally intended. Essentially it is very sophisticated theft/scraping/etc. And a lot of "it" has existed for the last 20-30 years - just not as easily accessible to the masses. (Just like GPS has been around from the 70's, but people didn't really become aware of GPS until about 2010 when iPhone included it with the brand new 'iphone').

Anyways... I do like a lot your articles, please just remember you are writing for other photographers who have brains, not some dumb dumb that likes clickbait and believes everything they see in either CNN/FOX.

Cheers!

Hi SuperPhoto,

I give brutally honest so it's only normal that I should take some

I'll reply with each of the points with my thoughts:

A) Clients can purchase licenses directly from both WS and PF, although sure they make more money from distributing. Anyway, most agencies distribute as it reaches more potential buyers.
B) Agreed
C) Agreed, but it doesn't stop companies from charging, for instance Outlook and Gmail now charge for "premium" storage even if they're still earning from the free account by other means. The basic package is quite basic and an average user should quickly find their storage capacity limited.
D) True, not everybody is experiencing diminishing returns, although I'd say that on average it's the case. You're right that I shouldn't generalise. As for inflation, I would say that it's directly related to microstock since our earnings have less spending power once it reaches into our bank account/paypal. In other words, our microstock earnings have not been corrected for inflation (it's actually dropped, on average). This is a global business so inflation vastly depends on where you live, but the latest data is easy to find on any legitimate source.

From the second part:
A) Agreed. Much more can and should be done. They're professionally negligent imo. 
B) My argument and I think it's a sound one, is that if an agency "forced" contributors to pay a $10 fee (I thought the logical use of words would be for storage but can be framed as any sort of administration fee), most amateur accounts wouldn't bother...plus most don't even earn $10 a month anyway so in theory they would be working for free. The free-give away experiment is unrelated imo...small update: so far 78,000 downloads and $0 earned from a combined 182 images and 4 videos on Pixabay and Pexels. The experiment is set to expire in January and I'm looking forward to deleting my accounts on there unless something magical happens.
C) Agreed. Don't know for sure whether the junk makes it more difficult for buyers to find what they want. It certainly diminishes the overall quality of a collection.
D) I'm by no means an Ai expert on the matter. Some of the tools available now seem like real game-changers. Not just the text-prompt from Dalle2 and Midjourney but the the generative fill in Adobe Firefly...and we're still in the early days.
E) That would be great to eliminate those thieving accounts or at least make them pay.

As for it being a click-baity article, fair enough it's your opinion. It's a question that is posed instead of a statement enticing readers to find out more...and the fact that you clicked on it and read it thoroughly means it achieved its aims, even if you don't agree with most of what was written I don't have ads up on the blog so I don't earn for more views...sure, I promote some courses and products but that's normal in return for the content.

I'll keep writing interesting ones, no doubt! This industry fascinates/frustrates me more and more each day!

All the best - Alex