I would draw a parallel with Music...there is no longer value in the music that is available mostly free. Physical presence counts such as concerts people even pay to shake hands with their heroes The situation has reveresed from when the concert was a means of marketing records.

So the money is in training/workshops event photography...any  thing that requires human presence.

Kodak tried to maintain the value of their product by resisting change they were flattened.

Well I took my first stock shots in 2009 though didn't really start commiting to stock until 2012.

My high water mark was 2018 but it's literally collapsed by 50% since and now I make less than I did back in 2014 even though I added more and more of better quality and always did research on shooting subjects.

Thanks to Shutterstock's idiotic acceptance policies and of course iStock/Getty who I left in 2017 once the penny and sub-penny royalties kicked in.

I did dabble in video but even though that market is becoming saturated and the so-called agencies are leading a race to the bottom on video prices I think I'll spend more time on video as its the only way to keep the money coming to pay for the essentials like food and rent.

I live in a rural area where job opportunities are scarce unlike city dwellers I rely on stock to pay for the cost of living.

I was also disgusted to see Shutterstock banned you Laurin from the forum seeing as you and Dave spent so much time on the forum giving free advice.

You put up with so many insults over the years from the wannabes and trolls.

Started in 2008. 

I'm still in, but it's no longer my main thing. 

I still enjoy photography, and prefer selling through markets over direct to individuals. 

My main income now is from fabric and R-rated coloring books.

unseengallery.com

Started in 2004. Still have an active account at Adobe, but not actively uploading for the last 3 or 4 years. For the buyer, microstock is still alive. For the contributor, not so much. Some still do well, most do not.

I started with istock in 2004 with the first set of 10 images. Forgotten about it till 2006 when I could cash out. Uploaded another 30 or so and started to contribute on a few other sites, forgotten about it again for another year. It was around 2008 when I could cash out every month (from almost every site) with a portfolio of 200ish photos. When I reached around 400, the earnings became significant. Although I never really had the urge to feed the beast and drop my full time job for it, 12 years later, with a portfolio of 600+ my earnings are still roughly the same. I'm just happy and thankful that with my little effort, I could upgrade my gears every few years, bought a car, and even a small vacation home.

Also started in 2008 with stock.  But I only got into stock as an extra income source. I actually started making money onsite working for an inflatable company designing and working on a few of the balloons I designed. I designed interactives, costumes, cold air and helium. Many are being used all around the world to this day. But at the same time I went back to school and got some animation experience and did quite well. Then I tackled some freelance jobs and still at it to this day on and off and with stock and other side things. But the big issue I have besides the way MS is heading (train wreck)  is a personal one (also kind of a train wreck).  All my life I deal with loads of anxiety. It kind of gets in the way of making money many times. But somehow I push my self although I really could use some kind constructive encouraging pushing though. I really have a lack of that in my life. In fact most of the time I get the opposite. 
But then I can't expect anything less from the cruel world. Just have to solder on. 

BTW that doesn't stop me from helping (if I'm able) others even though I get treated like crap many times. 

So Thank YOU! to all those people that helped me over the years or who are going to but to those who do not? well you might wanna reflect and think how unbeneficial that can be for you and others.

My main income now is from fabric and R-rated coloring books.

There are R rated coloring books?  Who knew?

Way at the end and by the way, this article is a very long version of the Race to the Bottom which it seems everyone recognized long ago, but decided to ignore that it was real. Oh maybe things will get better?  You know what I mean, "the next big thing." or "new agency that will disrupt the market". Really?

"The failure to see and embrace change." That's what he says that sums it up. People who want to live in the past and can't see ahead. So they just live in the past, unhappy with the future.

Personally phones still take crappy images, lack control, have tiny thumbtack size lenses and little sensors, crammed with pixels. Only the software and processor can save them.  I like a real camera, but I'm not all about sharing or social media either.  What I mean is, depending on who you are asking, the camera is a tool, and the right tool for the job is what is best. If someone is taking snapshots of friends and uploading to some sharing site, a phone with a camera is perfect. If someone is trying to capture high quality, refined images, a DSLR is best.

There are many in between that are great for what people want to do. I won't leave those out. There's no one answer that fits all, and anyone who proposes that there is, like phones are the answer, is short sighted and close minded.

Hey, remember what I say... I want a digital camera that has a phone built in. Why have a phone with a weak camera. When is someone going to go the other way around. High quality instant images that can be uploaded from the camera? 

How am I doing? Better than I expected to be doing ten years ago. I keep changing and adjusting and looking for areas that are not over saturated with thousands of better images than I'm likely to add.

Besides the race to the bottom, price cutting, reducing the margin to nearly nothing for volume and the artists earnings to less and less because of price and commission cuts? What else?

Do I need to paint a picture?

2006 = 1 million images
2009 = 6 million images
2010 = 10 million images
2012 = 20 million images
2014 = 40 million images
2016 = 80 million images
2017 = 160 million images
2020 = 320 million images

If 2012 was the level and volume of images, competition, that broke the back of earnings for individual, what is anyone expecting for 2020?

...but which is the more important factor in revenue decline...the number of images uploaded, or the revenue per sale...something tells me it's the latter. In the "good old days" we weren't getting $0.38 per download (I know the average is higher, but it used to be much higher). Remember, a large percentage of those 300 million plus images are things that don't have much sales potential.

1990 for me.

What I can see from other people experience, and mine, too, is that at some point earning started sliding down. For some it was 2012., 2013, but for most of  people 2016. or 2018. For me it was 2016.
From some information from a different source - lifestyle photographers are still doing great. It asks for perfect pictures, 1-3 assistants, small crews, but it still works. From the same source I figured out that most of them are Istock exclusive. Remember StockPerformer asking us to try to explain why SS submissions halved in January?
It is because Getty/Istock is dominating lifestyle stock market. The only part of the market that actually makes money for both agencies and photographers is dominated by Getty. SS is loosing this game. The source is reliable - out of 100 photographers roughly 80 are Istock exclusives in one of those paradises for producing stock! That is a huge thing! Who could even imagine that? I always thought Istock exclusives are minority. Getty sends their producers, managers to this country to work with photographers, because they recognized the potential. SS recognizes nothing! New, young photographers, just starting out in stock in this country will follow the ones that are successful - Istock photographers. Almost all young up and coming photographers are automatically recruited to Getty! What a win for Getty! SS is lost and if they want to get back on the track they have to attract these photographers. Of course, it is not my job to tell them how. But not having an office in Serbia, Ukraina, Belorus, Poland or whereever is a huge mistake. Being so disconnected from creators is bizzare. They think it is enough to write few blog post  what will be popular this month and this year written by some hipsters and that's it? Luckily, Adobe is at least trying something. Making great webinars, connecting with photographers here, pushing new content so everybody could be happy and encouraged and have a chance. SS doesn't sell new content. That's ridiculous, it can't last.

...but which is the more important factor in revenue decline...the number of images uploaded, or the revenue per sale...something tells me it's the latter. In the "good old days" we weren't getting $0.38 per download (I know the average is higher, but it used to be much higher). Remember, a large percentage of those 300 million plus images are things that don't have much sales potential.

SS hasn't changed anything for Subs? Well yeah, they actually raised pay and levels, but I mean since about 2007, everything has been the same, 25-33-36-38� however, true the ELs and others have dropped in value. Depends on where we actually get most of the money?

Also true many of those 300 million "other" images, are probably not competition, and many of them don't compete with mine. But still if there were only 20 million images in 2012, when things started falling apart, and the percentage of good to not so good, has remained the same, we have 300 million competing images.

Once again, just the math? In 2012 many involved people had 2,000 images, of the 10 million. (counting contributors means nothing, it's how many images. There were all kinds of people with under 100 or 0) Back to the math: .02% = that's not 2% - is what someone with 2,000 images had, of the total, in 2012 on SS.

.000625% is what anyone will have now. I can't assume that everything new in the last 8 years is substandard and not as good as the old images. In fact I'm consider that newer equipment, better education, some new artists are the photo factories, High Tech. Rather that, new competition, is actually better than the early days when, upload on Monday and sold by Tuesday was easy.

Many of my images that used to sell from before 2012, have never had a sale since then. OK I wasn't doing great images back then, others may have held up better. I also chose some pretty lazy and lame subjects. Just like new people now. 

But the point is, the buyers have 300 million more choices and if only 10% are "good" images, that's still 30 million new images that are taking sales away from the levels of before 2012. If that's a ratio, just considering, we could all expect our sales to drop 75%? I mean all hypothetical and I just threw out 270 million images as irrelevant, yet because of market dilution, sales would drop 75%?

That's my point of the numbers. Sheer volume and competition, ignoring 90%, and we still would be making less and less. Then add that prices have dropped, so we get a smaller commission because it's a smaller fee, and I'm not surprised.

In fact what's more of a surprise is, that things aren't worse!