Wow, I was SO close to joining with my few thousand images. They would have been my next agency to try. Decided to just give it some time, after being burnt with others in the past. So glad I delayed my decision. Sorry for those who have invested time there.

This really sucks!! I have been on 500px for a while and I was starting to get some pretty good sales.  Not the frequency of other sites but one sale was much higher, I had a couple of months where I had two $175 sales in the month. Also, sales had been steadily increasing in frequency over the past six months too...

I was another one thinking of submitting after all the discussion here. Now no way.

I haven't even tried to sell anything there yet because I mostly do silly illustrations n stuff but, that really is about as good as most of the microstock deals that we're getting ... and I was really hoping that 500px wouldn't really take the micro route and be ... well kind of a bridge ... like an array of micro to spectacular ...

I love the community there though, and they've now introduced some contests which might get me out shooting more ...

I don't know, I do stupid drawings ... would it make sense to submit my not-amateur-just-not-pro photos to just 500px? I mean, only a few purchase per month is still a decent payout right?

So far, model and content releases have been nearly too big of a pain to even worry about photos, I mean some group shots of the kids even doing something ... marketable ... like easter or something ... would take at least a day to sort photos, edit photos, fill out releases, upload photos, tag and keyword photos ... and that's being generous to most of these websites ... around half the time I give up on the slow *insult removed* and move along ...

Honestly, it's sometimes cool to check the emails and see that I've gotten a few bucks here or there but, to be honest guys ... It's ... dead ...

(however, for the first month in like four months 123rf got sales ... that sinking ship sucked in like $.53 this month, let's be optimistic about that)

Quote from: Elenathewise on March 24, 2016, 15:23
Just take a look at this (from 2015) to understand what kind of people are running 500px now. Really no surprises here.
http://thenextweb.com/entrepreneur/2015/05/23/co-founder-ex-ceo-500px-trial-errors-lessons-learned/

I love this comment from Andy Yang: "It's not beneficial to rehash that time." Like - "I stabbed the guy who hired me in the back and robbed him of his company, but hey who wants to talk about that?"

thanks a lot for sharing, was also not aware, btw I love Oleg's new project (https://pickapaw.com)

Quote from: Elenathewise on March 24, 2016, 23:00

New investment came in from China. Visual China Group. https://news.ontario.ca/opo/en/2016/03/tech-startup-500px-creating-high-value-jobs-in-ontario.html  ... I am deleting my stuff at the end of the month.

This gets me a bit riled up.  Yay, great for Ontario.  But they don't go into explaining how it affects Ontarians and Canadians along with the other "7 million professional and hobbyist" contributors.  Obviously this is why the drastic cut in royalties.


Edit:  I had a little rant.  Why can't I tag Kathleen Wynne though?   
https://www.facebook.com/lorraine.swanson1/posts/10153578066702992

Thats a good write up.

I just want to point out that going from 70% to 30% is a 57% percent decrease, so saying it is a 40% decrease actually makes it sound less bad than it is.

Or they used to be paying %133 more...

Quote from: Pixart on March 25, 2016, 17:48

Quote from: Elenathewise on March 24, 2016, 23:00

New investment came in from China. Visual China Group. https://news.ontario.ca/opo/en/2016/03/tech-startup-500px-creating-high-value-jobs-in-ontario.html  ... I am deleting my stuff at the end of the month.

This gets me a bit riled up.  Yay, great for Ontario.  But they don't go into explaining how it affects Ontarians and Canadians along with the other "7 million professional and hobbyist" contributors.  Obviously this is why the drastic cut in royalties.


Edit:  I had a little rant.  Why can't I tag Kathleen Wynne though?   
https://www.facebook.com/lorraine.swanson1/posts/10153578066702992

i have nothing against chinese or canadians (istock is based there),
but along with this other thread from a chinese
http://www.microstockgroup.com/index.php?topic=27293.msg0;topicseen#new
and when i mentioned about businesses turning to china to a group of chinese people locally,
they sort of laughed and say , "when our business ppl sell you something, you can be sure
we want to not only make 100 percent , but we will want to earn another cent on top of it."
and when  i told them about this move by 500px, they laughed and say, "who in china
pays for anything? the rich ppl did not get to be millionaires giving you anything,
and they do not expect to pay for anything either".

this sort of worrying explanation why not to expect anything better, no???

Quote from: DC on March 25, 2016, 20:15
Thats a good write up.

I just want to point out that going from 70% to 30% is a 57% percent decrease, so saying it is a 40% decrease actually makes it sound less bad than it is.

Thanks, I have since clarified in the post.  I "liked" the Premier so I could tag her and the Toronto Star.  It is crazy that they are endorsed by the Provincial Government, yet as a company they are getting away with a crime.  I would love a big paper to investigate the Wild West of the Internet where noone has rights and Istock, Getty, 500px, et all can promise the world and then give you nothing and where lone wolfs can register a business in the State of Texas - Revostock, not file bankruptcy and still close the doors and walk away with money from artists and from credits purchased by buyers. 

On deleting photos at 500px:

"If these photos have been submitted for licensing, they will no longer be available after 45 days and you will no longer be able to earn 70% of sales of the photos."

... and in a few days time you'll no longer be able to earn 70% of sales of the photos anyway

I have deactivated everything that isn't on the micros.

Seen 500px latest email?
It's going to get even more exciting!
Seems a deal with Red Bull Photography (who?)
Their comment:
Captivating photos by inspirational photographers incoming.

Load of new buyers incoming would be nice for a change...........

Royalty Cut..

What a disgusting move by 500px / KT.

Goes to show that KT apparently wasn't simply a messenger when they cut royalties at iStock in 2010. Now we see a clear pattern. Everywhere he goes, he turns promising ventures into turds.

Quote from: Noedelhap on April 01, 2016, 12:26
What a disgusting move by 500px / KT.

Goes to show that KT apparently wasn't simply a messenger when they cut royalties at iStock in 2010. Now we see a clear pattern. Everywhere he goes, he turns promising ventures into turds.

What can you expect from Mr. Unsustainable?

Boycott Kelly Thompson!

Disabled my account at 500px yesterday

Got e-mail this morning asking if I'd like to re-enable my store on Marketplace as a customer wanted to license an image. I replied that if the royalty cut to 30% had gone into effect today as planned, then no, I wouldn't. I haven't heard anything more

deleted account of 5000+ images - never had a sale

Quote from: Jo Ann Snover on April 04, 2016, 22:47
Got e-mail this morning asking if I'd like to re-enable my store on Marketplace as a customer wanted to license an image. I replied that if the royalty cut to 30% had gone into effect today as planned, then no, I wouldn't. I haven't heard anything more

Good for you. You should have added that they could always just pass the customer onto you so you could get a fair-trade 100% of the sale.

Quote from: Jo Ann Snover on April 04, 2016, 22:47
Got e-mail this morning asking if I'd like to re-enable my store on Marketplace as a customer wanted to license an image. I replied that if the royalty cut to 30% had gone into effect today as planned, then no, I wouldn't. I haven't heard anything more

And if I were a conspiracy buff I'd speculate that they'd been queueing up those requests until the cut took effect. But I'm not, so I won't. 

Quote from: stockastic on April 05, 2016, 20:51

Quote from: Jo Ann Snover on April 04, 2016, 22:47
Got e-mail this morning asking if I'd like to re-enable my store on Marketplace as a customer wanted to license an image. I replied that if the royalty cut to 30% had gone into effect today as planned, then no, I wouldn't. I haven't heard anything more

And if I were a conspiracy buff I'd speculate that they'd been queueing up those requests until the cut took effect. But I'm not, so I won't.

I don't think so because I received my first sale and not even an hour later I got the email telling me they were slashing the royalty rate 

Will their reviewing process still suck as bad as it did before the cuts?

Quote from: stockmn on April 06, 2016, 01:24

Quote from: stockastic on April 05, 2016, 20:51

Quote from: Jo Ann Snover on April 04, 2016, 22:47
Got e-mail this morning asking if I'd like to re-enable my store on Marketplace as a customer wanted to license an image. I replied that if the royalty cut to 30% had gone into effect today as planned, then no, I wouldn't. I haven't heard anything more

And if I were a conspiracy buff I'd speculate that they'd been queueing up those requests until the cut took effect. But I'm not, so I won't.

Nah they'd never pull something like that.  There are limits to the evil at work here.

I don't think so because I received my first sale and not even an hour later I got the email telling me they were slashing the royalty rate