I know a lot of people aren't uploading much to iStock anymore, but I uploaded a bunch of stuff this month and I was amazed how most of the pictures I uploaded got inspected within just a couple of hours. On top of that, everything I uploaded was accepted, including some stuff that would have perhaps never passed inspection before.

From this I draw 2 conclusions; Inspectors don't have a lot of pictures to review these days (because uploads are down so much) such that when you upload something it gets inspected right away. Secondly, they have dropped their standards of quality tremendously to encourage people to start uploading again and that is why I have a 100% acceptance rate now. They also aren't nearly as concerned about duplicate images from a shoot as they were before.

The fact that they will pretty much accept anything though is a dangerous double edged sword. Sure, it makes life a lot easier for contributors. For one they don't have to work as hard as before to achieve a certain standard of picture to get something up on iStock and they can add to their portfolios faster by throwing up lower quality images which are easier to snap quickly. The bad thing though is that the buyers are not being offered the same standard of quality as before.

What always set iStock apart from other pixel peddlers was that they had a more discriminately curated, high quality collection and buyers recognized that. Now the standards of quality are all over the shop. This has to start hurting sales further at some point though when buyers can no longer tell the difference in quality between pictures on iStock and other sites. And if there is no difference in quality, then why will buyers pay more for pictures on iStock at all?

The fact that there are no upload limits, combined with the fact that they will accept just about anything now, makes the whole situation much scarier.

I think what is also disturbing are the "Similar stock photos" that appear on most image close-up pages now. I have looked at many images where the suggested Similar stock photos are so far off from the original image. It seems the way the site works isn't effective. It takes keywords out of context and throws up images which are often very different from what the buyer is looking at. The buyers must see that and think W*F? And then the buyers lose more confidence in the search results when the system is suggesting similar stock photos which aren't similar at all.

No, not a good thing at all.

I presume that their intention, once they have built a humungous pile of images as mentioned, is to demote non-sellers from Signature and Plus collections down to the Main collection (and possibly on to subs in the PP) while, hopefully, promoting good sellers from the Main collection to Signature, and thereby hope to cover a whole range of quality standards in a one-stop shop. 

I don't like it much myself either but I can see that they may see it as a way forward in a world where images are getting more and more plentiful, and cheaper, all the time.  It remains to be seen how well it will work though...

From this I draw 2 conclusions; Inspectors don't have a lot of pictures to review these days (because uploads are down so much) such that when you upload something it gets inspected right away. Secondly, they have dropped their standards of quality tremendously to encourage people to start uploading again and that is why I have a 100% acceptance rate now. They also aren't nearly as concerned about duplicate images from a shoot as they were before.

Istock stats
Total files 15896921
Waiting approval 183230 

when first they begin to accept everything, it is the same as saying that all the hard work from previous years is lost, both theirs and their contributors.
Which is a very drastic thing to do. Its a change of paradigme.

They so to speak, bury the old istock under a pile of "***". They bury the exclusives under a pile of image factories and newcomers.

They change the luxury cruiser to a bulk carrier.

It would certainly be the right time for symbiostock and stocksy to add some competition.

In the early years, I learned a lot from my rejections.... and am grateful for them.....

Having everything I produce approved is what I always wanted but I didn't want it for everyone else.

Nice try!

I don't upload to iStock any more but I too learned a ton at the beginning  about technical quality. I think there could be some reasonable choices other than super-strict and bring your poor, your tired, your out-of-focus, overexposed snapshots yearning to be a stock photograph...

After you have sold a certain amount, I think more leeway on composition and filtering would make a lot of sense, for example

I honestly believe that there was always less judgement involved than at other sites but they could ferret out the slightest technical flaw and, now that this has been relaxed they seem to have no clue about good or bad.  Regardless of agreeing or not with the standards they did have standards, and I guess buyers could make a judgement call based on a preview - now there are none other than checking for model / property releases and I doubt they even look beyond the thumbnail. 

I'm sure there is an Evil Plan which will be revealed to us when they choose.

Sure, the previous standards were too high, but now ...

Like I've said before, I can speculate on what they might be up to, but the reality will almost certainly be worse.

I also have mixed feelings about this.

It may not be a bad thing, especially for seasoned photographers because it gives us more room to explore the creative and artistic side of photography. In the past, it seemed only the inspectors could try those approaches.

Ultimately, it is the buyers' call. They are not stupid.

just because some seasoned photographers got %100 acceptance of a batch, it doesn't mean newbies will get the same treatment..

Oh, they do, they soooo do.
It's been discussed here already with re someone who got 803 images accepted in a week with dubious image quality and nightmarish keywording.
And I've seen several since - which I found easily by searching on the 'new' filter and looking at the ports of some of the more egregious keyworders.

...I am sure they are not that stupid....

It is hard to believe but unfortunately all the evidence seems to point to them being that stupid.

Also, I don't understand their almost total abandonment of checking for accurate keywording. Almost every search you sort on 'New' is full of the most awful irrelevances, mistagging and deliberate spam.

One more try at explaining my personal opinion about this again although we have been around this debate before: From their point of view (and therefore ultimately for us too) it probably doesn't matter provided that over time keyword relevancy can ultimately sort the wheat from the chaff. The images which get clicked and bought gaining relevancy over the years.

And so-what if search by New seems like the unregulated Wild West to the pedants - provided that the best match and Most Popular searches are good. Indeed the unregulated nature of a new images search may sometimes offer a positive randomness.

The way I see things - iStock is going to be like a sorting house. Some stuff will end up at GI or in higher priced collections. Some stuff will sink without a trace. Two ends of a spectrum. And what goes for keywording also pretty much applies to quality. Why not accept everything and see what floats to the top  - and then, perhaps, handpick from that later ?