I'm a little miffed that I just spent more money on a higher megapixel camera so I could move into the XL sizes, and now the prices are getting lowered. That kind of sucks.

Quote from: helix7 on December 16, 2009, 16:20
I always thought it was a little silly that the bar was ever dropped to 250. At that level, there's nothing all that exclusive about exclusivity. Anyone can do it. Even 500 doesn't seem too difficult.

I guess it was to stop people from considering uploading elsewhere. Some people who start submitting to multiple agencies become iStock independent later; others find that iStock does not provide enough of a %age of their total to make exclusivity an attractive option.
If iStock sets the bar quite low, maybe a highish proportion of newbies (pure speculation) don't try elsewhere.

Quote from: helix7 on December 16, 2009, 16:20
I always thought it was a little silly that the bar was ever dropped to 250. At that level, there's nothing all that exclusive about exclusivity. Anyone can do it. Even 500 doesn't seem too difficult.

Being Istock exclusive has nothing to do with an elite. Istock exclusive images doesn't mean they are better than those of non exclusives. Being Istock exclusive just means you have an agreement with Istock not to sell your images anywhere else. That's all.

It looks to me like they just doubled all the canister levels without thinking through all the consequences.  I still think it is likely they will backtrack a bit, to make us all feel like we have won.

Perhaps with exclusive images costing more, they think non-exclusives will now sell more, so reaching 500 wont be a problem.  I don't think they should close the door on new people going exclusive.  There might be a few amazing contributors who haven't picked up a camera yet.

Newbies still need 500 even with the revision to canisters just announced. There's already comment on the istock forums about diversifying (outlets, presumably) from those racing to make bronze.

ETA: Looks like I might be wrong. From rogermexico:

QuoteWe are going to reserve the right to offer exclusivity to people with under 500 downloads, depending on the circumstances. So - if you're interested and under, we'll talk about it.

Roger's comment is in response to translucent members who are upset that they won't grandfathered. Exclusives will be grandfathered but non-exlcusives won't. Translucents who want to be exclusive but won't make it to 250 dls by the cut are supposed to contact IS directly and IS will decide if they grandfather them on a case by case basis.