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):

QuoteDuring 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

I always felt I should either pay for hosting, or pay a commission. Not both.

The point of removing amateurish or useless (let's call them inactive) contributors is a good point, but also: these are the kinds of contributors with small profiles and low sales volume. They probably step in, upload a bunch of images, and then leave again to not never come back, but keep an activated account. They never reach payout, and when they do they might even forget to cash out. So the agency keeps it all. They might be the most profitable contributors for an agency after all

And also: removing accounts or contributors leaving due to hosting charges means a shrinking database.
Not something they probably would want in data-hungry AI times. 

Whether those losses would balance out against the amount of contributors that's willing to pay a monthly hosting fee is to be determined.
We don't know, but agencies can pull out that data if they want to. And I would be surprised if they already didn't do the math.

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

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.

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.

In my opinion this won't happen with the big agencies,they don't care who sells but the important thing is that they earn overall,which they already do,so charging contributors will only drive many away with consequent loss of content and money.

However,what could happen in my opinion,is the possibility of paying to have better exposure of the contents,but I don't think it will become mandatory.

I totally disagree with reason 5,maybe I'm too optimistic,but I'm absolutely convinced that the contributors will serve as always because real things are always needed and works already done too,IMO the market is only changing and evolving but it's not ending.

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

Quote from: Sean Locke Photography on July 13, 2023, 23:03
No.  We did that in 2004.  It was called ShutterPoint or something.  You can tell how well that worked out.

Did not work in 2004 but it might work in 2024
two choices
either you get paid 10% commission on sales or you get paid 30% commission but you pay $5 a month per every 1000 images. Factories of course will get a special deal, as always.

It might work

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.

Interesting discussion.

Here are the results of the poll so far.

Quote from: images on July 14, 2023, 05:02
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.

Quote from: Brasilnut on July 13, 2023, 17:07
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):

QuoteDuring 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

I think it would be a good idea to pay for every upload.
Twenty years ago i was shooting medium format. Every image i took did cost around 1 Euro.
A medium format slide film including developing did cost about 10 Euro. Depending of used format, 4,5X6, 6X6 or 6X7 you got around 8 to 12 images at one roll medium format film.
So i think photography is to cheap nowadays.
Every upload to microstock should be charged with one € / $

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

Quote from: fotoVoyager on July 13, 2023, 18:50
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'd pay to go back to those days. I remember taking a chance on my rejected content and paying $125 to have my images duped in all the offices around the world. I would love to go back to actually have an editor accepting or refusing an image which is a bit different from the gong show of today.

Quote from: fotoVoyager on July 13, 2023, 18:50
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.

Quote from: Unamas on July 14, 2023, 22:35
The Microstock Agencies could start pruning the unused content: If you photo was not sold during last year, it will be deleted.

that's counterproductive for agencies - they all tout how many millions of images they have (they never post how many are unsold)

AS has the $5 bonus for non-productive images  they think have value, but they don't delete anything

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?

Quote from: Unamas on July 14, 2023, 22:35
The Microstock Agencies could start pruning the unused content: If you photo was not sold during last year, it will be deleted.

I recently had a first time sale at SS of a file that was uploaded in 2018.
It brought me $52, which I wouldn't have had, if the file had been deleted.

Quote from: flywing on July 16, 2023, 08:32
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.

Quote from: cascoly on July 15, 2023, 19:50

Quote from: Unamas on July 14, 2023, 22:35
The Microstock Agencies could start pruning the unused content: If you photo was not sold during last year, it will be deleted.

that's counterproductive for agencies - they all tout how many millions of images they have (they never post how many are unsold)

AS has the $5 bonus for non-productive images  they think have value, but they don't delete anything

It is also bad for all the customers who have lightboxed these files. There is a reason agencies absolutely hate it if we deactivate content. Even for a short time.

To promote the best content all agencies have edited collections that they keep updating, moving content in and out and promoting it heavily on their website, newsletters...

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, 13:56

Quote from: flywing on July 16, 2023, 08:32
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.

Quote from: offisapup on July 17, 2023, 09:43

Quote from: Brasilnut on July 16, 2023, 13:56

Quote from: flywing on July 16, 2023, 08:32
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.

$10/month to keep my photos on SS? I make more money on SS in a month, so it's not a big deal for me, but it would weed out a smaller contributors.

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