Quote from: lisafx on June 28, 2013, 19:05

Quote from: borg on June 28, 2013, 12:12

So, we need another topic, "War against iStock", not "How to support friendly agencies"!

Reading your posts today, I am just shaking my head.  Back in February hundreds of us got together and staged a protest by deleting all or part of our portfolios and stopping uploading.  Where the F were you then?  Going on like business as usual?   

Now you want everyone to follow you into some "war" with Istock?  We already had the "war" and you and a lot of other people who are irate today evidently didn't participate.  If everyone had, maybe they wouldn't be pulling yet more sh*-t.

Please, could you remember my last survey which was actual here month or two ago, then you might not have reacted so harshly... That post was sarcasm related with my last survey "Let support fair trade agency"...
Also my opinion then and now is the same, deleting portfolio or removing a part of portfolio is not good enough, in fact they want to provoke that kind of reaction... I had tried to explain that here several times but without results...
Getty has strong will  to repel you and me from iStock and that is whole truth... Less good images on iStock, mean easier routing of buyers to Getty images, especially for corporate buyers...
So I still think that deleting portfolio is not good enough, for any kind battle with them, certainly it is not a "war"! It is a retreat


They want to redirect serious buyers to Getty, and other such as bloggers to Thinkstock, and then to switch off whole iStock...

In that case, why are they piling rubbish into the main collection with the 999 files a day allowance and ridiculously lax inspections?

They make their decision on movements in statistics, sometimes illogical at first sight... But they are struggling for sure to keep buyers, not us!
Many new rubbish in collection will make customers nervous and then they will offer big, serious and unique "Getty collection" to them based on their behavior...
Typical for eBay for example! Many people stay with eBay even there are a lot better auction sites...

For sure, they have a plan...
Sorry, but we indies (and many others) are not in that blueprint...

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on June 28, 2013, 23:11
In that case, why are they piling rubbish into the main collection with the 999 files a day allowance and ridiculously lax inspections?

PP fodder?

You can shoot me for this but I think this is a good move! They are looking out for their exclusives first and giving the customer what they need! I hope buyers come running back to iStock, heck it stills pays more then SS most of the time! This is a customer centric change so lets see what happens! You can always become exclusive if buyers come running back!

One more thing, the problem is supply and demand, iStock has enough suppliers to do what they want hence they are in the drivers seat, so is SS and others. The best thing they can do is to protect their exclusive base!

Quote from: jjneff on June 29, 2013, 00:11
You can shoot me for this but I think this is a good move! They are looking out for their exclusives first and giving the customer what they need! I hope buyers come running back to iStock, heck it stills pays more then SS most of the time! This is a customer centric change so lets see what happens! You can always become exclusive if buyers come running back!

I honestly can't see how on Earth this is beneficial to exclusives.  They have seen huge drops in downloads, and more recently earnings.  How is giving away indie content for practically nothing going to reverse that trend??

interesting (depressing) who some exclusives keep on seeing the bright/positive side BUT actually you guys are f***** blind and still living the iStock dream which is more than buried

jjneff don't you dare saying that SS is paying us less than IS because that is the ugliest wrong lie you could ever say, that is just bollocks and you know it!

Quote from: jjneff on June 29, 2013, 00:11
You can shoot me for this but I think this is a good move! They are looking out for their exclusives first and giving the customer what they need! I hope buyers come running back to iStock, heck it stills pays more then SS most of the time! This is a customer centric change so lets see what happens! You can always become exclusive if buyers come running back!

They claim it's customer centric, but I'm not sure.
I'm sure buyers would prefer to clearly see why some images cost 10x more than others, even if 'only from iStock'. I'm sure that while some will narrow search using the £ - ££££ slider, others would like to see everything available and while viewing the thums, see the price of each, as was there before, so they can decide whether it's worth paying 10 credits for this file or whether the one which costs 1 credit will satisfice. I'd be astonished if (m)any buyers asked for that to be removed.

Slightly OT, but I still don't understand how they can get away with saying "only available from Istock" on images that are sold all over the place at Getty and non-Getty sites.  Isn't that blatantly false advertising?  And isn't that still illegal??

Quote from: lisafx on June 29, 2013, 00:31
Slightly OT, but I still don't understand how they can get away with saying "only available from Istock" on images that are sold all over the place at Getty and non-Getty sites.  Isn't that blatantly false advertising?  And isn't that still illegal??

In Canada and the UK, yes.
But you know what iStockLawyer is with semantics, e.g. the currency hike. I'd assume he's got their asses covered, impossible as it might seem.
http://www.adstandards.com/en/standards/canCodeOfAdStandards.aspx

Buyer habits dictate most buyers won't use the lowest price point, now at the lowest price point iStock now is priced to include the small spender, the one man band like myself. For the past two years I have bought from SS and Pond5, now that IS prices are lower I will be shopping there for my images. Exclusive will dominate the upper price points so the up sale will benefit all exclusives. Since the market is saturated it is good to have less competition in the upper price points. Don't get me wrong as I feel non-exclusives should never be lower than 20% and iStock has not treated you fair at all, I am sorry for this massive pay cut for you as well! For the customer it is a good thing and only time will tell if it is good for exclusives or not. All of you are so talented, please keep in mind I have 40 pages of video in the "$" collection and I know the same will happen to video as photo.

I have to say so far this month my sales are strong. In fact I have had more iStock sales than normal as the past few months most of my sales have been Getty and PP sales. Maybe just an influx due to the changes, but this naive mofo is staying positive for now

once again no worries because buyers are running fast back to iStock so they will have money to pay lawyers etc

don't you guys forget that this all for the sake of contributors and we appreciate it! (and so does Yuri)

Where there is an action there is a reaction, Istock lowering prices? what do you think competition is gonna do? sit and see their customers go back to big daddy?
Microstock prices are going to plummet and the agencies are going to drop the commissions they pay to their contributors will shrink in order to the agencies to survive the price war that just started. Anyway there is a huge offer of images everywhere, right? Just go to flickr and you will find people anxious to give up their work just in exchange for their names being credited. There is an big oversupply. The microstock market is saturated.
Microstock factories right now are over producing in order to survive the coming future market, some of them are even merging among them in order to remain competitive and profitable, in order to keep a certain percentage compensation in IS.

So whats the future? only being exclusive and overproductive could allow you to have a chance to survive if you are not more than a casual hobbyist. Even if you became exclusive and start shooting like crazy doesn't mean you are gonna make it.

Do you now understand why the famous danish professional microstock photographer we all know changed his mind agreeing to do exactly the opposite of what he was preaching for the last 8 years? He wants to be out of the microstock price war that  is coming taking refuge in the medium stock exclusive harbor because he knows his chances of surviving in the independent microstock market are very narrow.

Yes ladies and gentlemen, the big losers in all this enchilada are the contributors, specially the independent contributors, unfortunately.

It is a sad day for microstock photographt.

so:

- independent
- istock exclusive
- ?

Quote from: Juanmonino on June 29, 2013, 01:30
Do you now understand why the famous danish professional microstock photographer we all know changed his mind agreeing to do exactly the opposite of what he was preaching for the last 8 years? He wants to be out of the microstock price war that  is coming taking refuge in the medium stock exclusive harbor

He already left the harbor. Right now he is having a blast in the VIP lounge on the Titanic.

Overall, what is hurting photography and even the design industry is that everyone now has access to the tools...hardware and software that used to be pricey and not available to the average consumer is easily obtainable. You used to have to go to specialized schools or become an apprentice to learn how to use these tools, now you have tutorials and training online and freely available to everyone. Things are changing...you can no longer rely on just the know-how, you have to truly bring something unique to the table. You have to bring what both comes naturally and through your own personal experiences. This is something that cannot be easily replicated.

Quote from: jjneff on June 29, 2013, 00:54
Exclusive will dominate the upper price points so the up sale will benefit all exclusives.

No it will not.

It may benefit some exclusives; it surely does not benefit my portfolio.  Is that my own fault, for gearing my port towards easily reproduced files? Perhaps. But I was basing my strategy on what was working. It worked for years, until 2 weeks ago. Now my port is dead in the water, and rightly so. You have to be an insane idiot (not just insane or an idiot) to purchase many (if not most) of my S+ files. And apparently the few buyers that remain with IS don't qualify. And sadly the non S+ portion of my port is filled with lower sellers (naturally, since most of the best sellers were promoted).

it's finally becoming a rat race to the bottom.

on the other side i've met a guy working for NGOs who made around 20K with his latest exhibitions, prints in A3 format of street photography stuff of asian cities, and this on top of his well paid full time job at NGOs, he's also planning about doing expensive workshops to teach newbies.

another guy works for a local newspaper, they're so cheap they dont even provide him the gear, he's using his own 5DmkII with a few lenses, if he get robbed he 's F-ed.

Quote from: jjneff on June 29, 2013, 00:54
Buyer habits dictate most buyers won't use the lowest price point, now at the lowest price point iStock now is priced to include the small spender, the one man band like myself. For the past two years I have bought from SS and Pond5, now that IS prices are lower I will be shopping there for my images. Exclusive will dominate the upper price points so the up sale will benefit all exclusives. Since the market is saturated it is good to have less competition in the upper price points. Don't get me wrong as I feel non-exclusives should never be lower than 20% and iStock has not treated you fair at all, I am sorry for this massive pay cut for you as well! For the customer it is a good thing and only time will tell if it is good for exclusives or not. All of you are so talented, please keep in mind I have 40 pages of video in the "$" collection and I know the same will happen to video as photo.

So you don't care that the contributor might only get 15% and a low price with istock when they get 50% and can set what they think is a fair price with Pond5?  You wont find any of my best images on istock, they're all on Pond5.  I'm not the only person that has had enough of istock and I would hope buyers aren't only thinking of themselves because not many of us will carry on supplying new images if we can't afford to pay the bills.

Quote from: Xanox on June 29, 2013, 07:11
it's finally becoming a rat race to the bottom.

on the other side i've met a guy working for NGOs who made around 20K with his latest exhibitions, prints in A3 format of street photography stuff of asian cities, and this on top of his well paid full time job at NGOs, he's also planning about doing expensive workshops to teach newbies.

another guy works for a local newspaper, they're so cheap they dont even provide him the gear, he's using his own 5DmkII with a few lenses, if he get robbed he 's F-ed.

We'll have to see if istock is successful with lowering some of their prices.  They've not got a good track record over the past 5 years, every change seems to of sent buyers away.  Buyers might not be bothered with lower prices, there's already sites out there that have failed by thinking cheap prices are all the buyers want.  Buyers might not like having such a big range of prices, they might prefer all images at the same price.  Hopefully they will be aware that a lot of us have removed all our best images from istock and no longer supply them with new images.  Low prices and 15-20% commission is unsustainable for most of us and will kill off microstock, do buyers really want that?

Hi all...

I am both, buyer and contributor, trying to look at new iStock policies in realistic way from both angles. I'm writing this post because this thread looks is a bit away from reality and sounds like bitter chanting of angry ex-iStockers. My apologies.

Anyways, to me it looks like things are moving in good direction there for a simple reason. Client needs ONE LOCATION to find good content. He hates to waste time visiting 10 websites and buying credits heaps here and there. IStock now offers globally present content at really low prices but also great exclusive content at higher prices. That is a great value for clients and hardly any other site has something similar to offer.

Quote from: snipershot on June 29, 2013, 08:49
Hi all...

I am both, buyer and contributor, trying to look at new iStock policies in realistic way from both angles. I'm writing this post because this thread looks is a bit away from reality and sounds like bitter chanting of angry ex-iStockers. My apologies.

Anyways, to me it looks like things are moving in good direction there for a simple reason. Client needs ONE LOCATION to find good content. He hates to waste time visiting 10 websites and buying credits heaps here and there. IStock now offers globally present content at really low prices but also great exclusive content at higher prices. That is a great value for clients and hardly any other site has something similar to offer.

But as a buyer, don't you also notice that it offers great independent content at low prices and a good supply of poor exclusive content at high prices? You've got no exclusive rights from going to the higher price point, so why not just stay cheap?  Or does the "exclusive" tag create a subconscious impression that your client won't find the same image being used by a rival?

I do appreciate your explanation of how buyers might view the change. It's also interesting that several people have hinted that the perception of getting something better if you pay more will support the higher levels. Perhaps that's why Getty keeps polluting them with some absolute rubbish from its archives.

I'm split on this move but since I'm an optimistic by nature I'm inclined to wait and judge IS by results. All else is speculation. It would be very nice to see my sales at least return to 2011/12 levels.

Thinking back, I stepped into this game knowing it was like any other retail business, that it was going to get tougher, more market saturated, more competitive and potentially less economical to pursue as time went on - what surprises me (genuinely) is that so many others seem to have thought otherwise.