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Author Topic: Buyers Bailing on Istock  (Read 387868 times)

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molka

    This user is banned.
« Reply #300 on: October 19, 2010, 07:18 »
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MORTON
I'm listening but not hearing much.
Admins, check how much i spend here. And I'm only here because I was referred by a contributor who I'm very fond of. Out of respect for that contributor, and others I am actively looking elsewhere for my images.
I'm sure Getty don't need my money anyway. You have now placed Vetta out of my reach. The agency collection doesn't interest me at all and you are constantly trying to get me to Thinkstock. If I'm looking for a subs package I've found a better deal on another site outside of the Getty empire.
Contributors. It's a big step but you need to get together, take your content and your ethics and reasonable prices and royalties and start up again. Designers will follow. Designers are cool. iStock was cool, Getty isn't.

What a rotten way to treat people.

LIZZIELOU (buyer who has spent more than $10000 over the last five years, documented with a screenshot)
I'll have to go where the images go. I believe this will have to start with the big contributers moving, buyers following then the smaller conrtibutors follow. but in support I will try to shop elsewhere before here especially if the artist is not wearing a crown (which is looking more like a dunce hat)

POLEKSPRESS (member since 2005)
I will never buy credits from Istock again!!!!!!!!!

ABDESIGN
I am the art director for a company who has purchased close to 2500 images here at istock. We will never again purchase images from here. In fact, is there a way to get your current credits refunded. I will be throwing away my crown before the end of the year and moving on. This place disgusts me.

SDbT
In protest ... I just used up the last of my credits and will not purchase further content at iStock until this situation is resolved.

MORTMATCH (corporate master)
I'm a pissed-off buyer. Microstock is cheap to begin with. Giving contributors less of a piece of the pie -- and I pity the non-exclusives taking such a hit as well as the exclusives who bought in to the promise of rewards for selling only to iStock customers -- is beyond greedy and mean-spririted. It's sweatshop labor. Hear that, iStock? S-W-E-A-T-S-H-O-P. I'm disgusted.
A couple of months ago, I had my company open a corporate account for thousands of dollars. And I can change that.
By the way, let me take a crack at running your business. I think I can make those margins sustainable without screwing your artists. I really think I can. How hard can it be to make something profitable when you're raking in 70 percent of the income of a product you don't even make?

anonymous
Photography is a "hobby" for me and my tiny little port of 250 images at IS will not sway their decision, my REAL job is creative director for fortune 1000 co.
Not only do you have my support in no longer purchasing from IS (have about 50 credits that I'll spend this weekend so that some of you can get your 20% - and I'll buy nothing with a crown : P   ), but I'm pulling my port as well. It's only worth about $500 per year, but I'll feel better about myself. We also have monthly "designer meetings" (people from area design companies get together to suck down scotch and crab cakes) and I will take my 10 minutes of speech time to make sure that they're at least aware of this.

It's unfortunate that Wall-St found its way into MS

added: and even if all of this gets IS to modify or completely drop this plan, I'm done with them.

GBALEX
I have worked in the advertising industry for years and our clients are mainly medium to small local businesses and a few large local corporations. I became a submitter in early 2004 to and thought seriously about quitting my job to develop a port large enough to live on.
I decided against it because I was afraid that it would end this way. I worried about the # of images flooding the market to the extent our work would be devalued. The writing was on the wall as you started seeing photographers who used to make decent money producing stock start offering workshops and frequenting micro forums to scare up customers simply because the money they made teaching others to produce stock is better than the money they made producing stock content themselves.
The end result has been many more submitters with LCV work burying images that we as buyers actually need for our projects.  Those submitters would never have made the cut if they had not been coached and most will never produce the type of work that most agencies and their clients need.
Besides being a buyer of images I know many submitters who have worked long and hard to provide a good living for themselves and I do not take the moves that IS has made lightly!  I think IS has forgotten that a great many buyers are also submitters and that as creative's we have respect and empathy for each other.
Micro does need to make changes, however I will not be supporting IS any longer.  Even before this move I have been buying my images more and more from sites who support photographers, graphic artists, video & audio producers.
With this move I have discussed this with my co workers and we have decided to no longer buy our content from IS.
I don't see things improving any day soon unless sites make moves to reduce LCV work, improve search engines and also raise prices for the end product.  That is hard right now because advertising in general has dropped because of the global recession.
I will encourage other buyers to examine how IS has treated its content providers and I will encourage them to seek other options.  Our company will no longer be buying IS content!

cameronpashak
I have continued to be a loyal customer and will buy an image that might not be the best out of all the ones i also found on other sites but still have bought it just because. If this goes thru, I will look at things for a year or so as a contributor. If I do worse next year under this structure, then i will look at my options as i can't really afford the time to upload to other sites at this moment.

But I can assure you the 60% of my earnings that i spend here buying images will definitely be spent somewhere else from the moment this is confirmed. I know that sounds crazy and not fair to our contributors but this is out of principle. If HF want to milk me of my continued hard work....they aint getting one bit of it back in the form of me buying images and I have the assurance of 3 other designer friends (none of which are contributors) of mine they are going to do the same as they see how hard outside of my regular work contributing images to istock.
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ForwardDesign
While having been a $1000 - $1400 per year "buyer" at Istockphoto, I'm rather surprised by their indifference to their contributors. We seem to live in a day and age where corporate greed is king. At our 10:00am meeting tomorrow, I will bring this up to our design staff and see if they know of an image source that plays more fairly at the schoolyard. After reading the forum posts, I have to agree that there is a serious difference in the mathematical understanding and a rather callus response from Istockphoto staff. It's likely that somebody upstairs desires a larger paycheck and/or they're jockeying to sell.
CNET

leremy
I am a contributor and also a buyer at istock. I still have 26 credit. I have so far only buy images from istock (I had spent about usd500 so far since 1 year ago), and with this recent development that really irritate me, I will definitely not buy anymore credits from istock. Yes, there are plenty other agencies out there that I can buy pictures from. Just a side note, one of them has helped me in making 6x times more money than what I have made here. The more I think of it, the more it make sense for me to buy elsewhere. [...]
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dsteller
[...]I am a contributor and I am a buyer. I am not big in either, but my 2000+ purchases are significant to me. It is sad for me to say but I am going to be purchasing elsewhere from here on out. [...]
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caspixel
[...]As a buyer, I am very excited to see some new fresh content at some other sites. You guys provide great content. The best, really. Time to share.
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anthony_taylor
As the library depletes, so will the custom. As a contibutor I'm being forced out. As a designer and buyer of images for national retail chain here in the UK I'll be taking my company's business elsewhere.
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emrah
[...]I'm definitely not buying any photos and stupid announcements of istock any more
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GeoffBlack
I will no longer buy here.
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Jancouver
[...]BTW. I also bought 440 files from iStock for our projects but I will NOT buy a single file again from iStock!
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ChrisGorgio
Shame on you for treating your long-standing contributors this way. Especially non exclusives who will be dropping to a base rate of 15%. If I'm not mistaken the lowest commission in the industry.
I will no longer be buying here or recommending the site to others.
Unbelievably greedy and ungrateful. Shame
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Anja_Kaiser
If these changes should actually take effect, I'm going to delete my entire portfolio on new year's eve. *NOONE* will take up to 85% of what *my* work earns. I was almost about to reach the golden canister level and now it's for the trashbin? Plus a huge pay-cut? Plus a slap in my face? NO. Enough is enough. I'll lose about $400 to 500 a month (still), but my pride's worth something, too. iStock will lose me as a contributor and a buyer as well. The whole thing is blatantly barefaced and respectless.
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JDehoff
I don't upload photos or illustrations of my own, so this does not effect me the same way. However, I have been downloading images to use in design projects from istock for years. The rates for images continue to go up each time I need to buy credits. I thought this would go to overhead and the artists. And now you're giving the artists I depend on a paycut? It seems like you're collecting more from both sides. Has someone gotten greedier?
The allure to istockphoto was that istock was NOT Getty images. I am saddened that istock has chosen to sell out and has opted to grow too large to maintain what made them unique in the first place. Change is only good if you don't lose the core of what made you good to begin with.
I guess I will increase my patronage to other, "smaller" stock image sites in the future in order to support the artists, instead of a corporation. Very disappointing istock.
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ktasos
I deactivated my second file!!! I have nothing to loose as a non-exclusive contributor.I think if the things remain the same i will delete my entire portfolio soon... plus i will never buy not a single $ from this place anymore
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Lazyfish
[...]But as a buyer i'm pissed off. I spend several thousand dollars on here every year through my corporate name, and i did that percisely because you guys were not getty. i liked the iStock model and always felt i was helping the little guy with the money my design agency makes. My business partner and I will have to re-evaluate were we spend our money now. I don't feel right giving it to you.
I feel sorry for people making their living on here. Good luck to you all!
Full post

anonymous
I had dinner tonight with the two people with whom I built the redacted. The artist/co-designer is currently working on an independent film and was shocked when I told him what IS are currently doing - he said that he's spent around $2,000 in the last month at IS on images and videos, and he will no longer buy there.
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acromedia
Although its been said many times already, I just have to add: Wow.
As a partner/creative director at a web design firm, I've used and steered numerous client to istock for years. I just added up our invoices and we've spent over $6000 here in the past few years.
However, once our credits run out, we will no longer purchase from istock or any other getty sites. It is insane how the contributors here are being treated, and I cannot in good conscious support a company that abuses its suppliers in these manners.
I urge you all to remember that you have a choice; creating thousands of posts is a good way to let of some steam, but I'd encourage you to spend that effort moving your content to other sites, of which I hope to see and buy your work.
Change, take action, send a message.
Full post

Crooky0
[...]I am not a contributor...I merely came here to buy stock photos, and have spent a decent amount of money here over the past few years. I have never boycotted a business in my entirely life before now. Congratulations, iSP...you are the first! How's it feel to be #1?
Full post

mericsso
I contribute to iStock for fun. My real job is Art Director at a Canadian Magazine. I'm starting to feel like I'm supporting a big corporation instead of the artists. After I burn up my last batch of credits, I'll be taking my business elsewhere. 85% percent is just too much profit IMO.
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hqimages
Yup, I'm downloading from Stockfresh now.. it's the only good alternative for me anyway.. but it feels good that there is an alternative with similar quality to istock, and better % for uploaders..
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luriete
(I'm a photographer, and a client who buys usually 750 credits a year - we'll switch to someone else on that front and ask other agencies we work with to do the same)
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The problem is that there are no reasonably big numbers showing. I used Istock for about 2,5 half years working for a BTL agency. It wasn' big, wasn't small either, but very busy. I was in very good termns with the owners, and the one doing the finances told me that we used (7th month) more than 2,5 million HUF for buying stock, which is about 13 000 dollars... and that was only a mid sized agency.


« Reply #301 on: October 19, 2010, 07:22 »
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From the designers who I personally know, they still consider Istock the best.

From a contributor's perspective, in all fairness, Vetta, Agency Collection and E+ give me a sense that I can grow into higher end of photography and will not stay at micro level  forever, if I improve my work. If the buyers cannot afford the higher end prices, they still have Thinkstock (and perhaps Dollar Bin) to shop from.

molka

    This user is banned.
« Reply #302 on: October 19, 2010, 07:40 »
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and I'll buy nothing with a crown : P
Why is that? What have exclusive contributors done to earn your wrath? In some ways, we are hurt more by this move than independents. Of course, it's your decision, and your money. I'm just curious why you feel that way.

Well - when some one pissis on me I for one Piss back.

Beisides - you should thank us, while on your knees whining. Hurting IS on the wallet, is the only thing that can bring the silly management at IS to the negosiationg table. The independents leaving, and taking their businnes and clients with them, is "money talks".

Remeber - there are 80%+ non ex. on IS.
Perhaps you should make sure you know who pissed on you before you piss back?

But I'm not going to contribute to this stupid argument any longer; I agree with those that say it's counterproductive. We are all getting screwed by Getty -- that's the part to focus on.

It's beacuse you don't get it. IS will keep changing goals until all exclusives are down to the standard Getty 20% royalty. You wil get F* over, and over, and over again.

The only way to get Getty to the negociating table, it to give them a hit on the wallet - i.e. IS sales. This is what the independents are doing for you. We are trying to save your asses. At the same time we free ourselves from the tyranny of Getty by taking our pics, our clients, and our DL's to other sites.
Wake up - wipe the cloth of IS sweettalk from your eyes....

why . do you ppl think it's just getty being The Bad Guy here? I even heard laughable crap like how Istuck used to be a nice communinty site.. yeh, for a few months in 2004 or smthng like that, I guess. The site has been around for more than 5 years, and in all that time they developed these rich features for contributors:
1. a single file upload button : )))
2. their very own village idiot running auroud in their forums insulting and mocking the the ppl who actually work for his pay, STFU-ing them by bans and locked threads if they wanted to discuss anything more serious then what they would like to have for next lunch.
3. random rejections from maltrained granpas pretending to be quality controllers.

They have been treating you like turds for years with or without getty... and getty's low commision were at least on several times higher prices.

« Reply #303 on: October 19, 2010, 08:55 »
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If the buyers cannot afford the higher end prices, they still have Thinkstock (and perhaps Dollar Bin) to shop from.
heh heh...yeah...THAT's the ticket  ::)

donding

  • Think before you speak
« Reply #304 on: October 19, 2010, 09:12 »
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I posted this under the" Istock changing royality structure" and thought I'd post it here as well since it does really have to do with buyers

I noticed an ad on my opening e-mail page for Istock....it says:

"WE MISS YOU...you know you want royalty-free images and videos for $1.....get 10% off and 10 free images"

Recon they really MISS their buyers..

« Reply #305 on: October 19, 2010, 11:50 »
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Well, that same email was sent many times over the years, I don't think it's due to some drop in revenue. For me every month is better than the previous, so people are still buying. I'm as upset about the changes in royalty amounts as anyone, but just bad mouthing and trying to start panic isn't the answer. As much as we would like to think buyers would go elsewhere because IS doesn't pay contributors enough it's not going to happen.

I posted this under the" Istock changing royality structure" and thought I'd post it here as well since it does really have to do with buyers

I noticed an ad on my opening e-mail page for Istock....it says:

"WE MISS YOU...you know you want royalty-free images and videos for $1.....get 10% off and 10 free images"

Recon they really MISS their buyers..

« Reply #306 on: October 19, 2010, 13:19 »
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^^^So what is the answer?  I don't think carrying on as if nothing has happened is right either.  They will just carry on taking more money from us.  I don't like doing weddings but I am even thinking about doing them now.  Anything is better than working for such a small slice of the money.

lisafx

« Reply #307 on: October 19, 2010, 14:00 »
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As much as we would like to think buyers would go elsewhere because IS doesn't pay contributors enough it's not going to happen.

You're probably right - just the fact that Istock is lowballing contributors isn't enough to get buyers to change agencies.  But if you add the fact that Istock is also squeezing buyers, then you get some traction.  If I was exclusive to Istock, posts like the following would really scare the he11 out of me.  Even as an independent they are unsettling.

Some highlights from the thread Jami linked to:

From Gracevinyard (the OP)

...In Summary for our us as a buyer over the last year: Less value, more time wasted, poor customer service.

As a serious question it seems that increasingly Istock is pitching for a different market now perhaps? Maybe smaller buyers like us should be at other microstock sites?


From Joebelanger:

I work for a $2 billion dollar company who uses/used Istock and they (last week) opened an account at another agency because of much of what you mention. They know I upload on several micros and asked me what's going on at IS and I simply directed them to the link, "where do we go from here".

From 8bm:

This is EXTREMEMLY ANNOYING. Thankyou for voicing this. Getting sick of having to advance search everything. Making it harder for us to exclude higher priced files WILL NOT tempt us to buy them - It is just frustrating and not to mention very obvious to buyers with nouse what is trying to be achieved.

From MortonS:

I came to this place a few years ago on the recommendation of a photographer. I wanted good quality cheap images - I'm sorry about that, I feel guilty now, but that's what made iStock stand out in the first place.

My last 600 credit pack dollars nearly went elsewhere, i had a 15% off code so I used it, but that will probably be the last time.

I know I'm a small scale buyer - about 5000 credits per year - but I feel that I am not welcome here. It's too confusing with standard collection, exclusive (which aren't), exclusive +, vetta, agency, dollar bin - have i missed any?

And don't get me started on the iStock exchange rate scam - a tip for buyers, don't EVER by in your local currency because you will probably pay 50% more for your credits.

And add to that the appalling redesign. The fonts are too small and nothing lines up. this place has gone from the designers secret to a designers nightmare. Flickr looks better quite frankly.

My last support query took several days to be answered - there is no excuse for that. Free services have faster response times.

The next time i need credits, I'm going to try another site. It might not be any better, but it can't be much worse.


From Sandypaige:

We don't buy huge amounts, I'm about the smallest fry out there. But I've been loyal, I have not bought art from any other site since the day I signed up here. In fact, until last week, I hadn't even searched online for other sites to consider. Last week I went looking for the first time. I'm not happy about it. I'd like to stay with iStock, but I don't think it's iStock anymore, not in the way I felt about it a year or two ago.

« Reply #308 on: October 19, 2010, 15:27 »
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great posts, Lisa.. here are a few 'tweets' just from today:

@schachin: OMGOSH.  @istock have you LOST your MIND!  $50 for a web use stock photo.  you are not GETTY even if they own you.  #FAIL @istock mixing in really $$$$ images does not help your brand.  Makes you look overpriced & waists my time.  If I want Getty I go to Getty.

@timmooredesign: Thank you.  @istock for continually gouging your loyal customers.  You frustrate me greatly with your ridiculous price hikes.


@INBEDINT: IN DA FACE istock!  You're too darn expensive, I can get ur pix for free on Googleimages! lmao! #evilltellya!

@catapultdigital: So I know there's been big economic changes but still not happy istock wants us to pay 1.15 for images that used to cost us less than $1

@JULIAREICH: seeking quality royalty-free stock illo sites that are NOT istock.

lately I've been seeing a lot of posts like these on twitter. 

« Reply #309 on: October 19, 2010, 15:41 »
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For me every month is better than the previous, so people are still buying. "

That's what they used say about the real estate market (plus investments, cars, flights, jobs, etc, etc) not so long ago.

According to my data Istockphoto's continued dominance is by no means assured.

« Reply #310 on: October 19, 2010, 15:53 »
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I see Lobo gratefully grabbed on the first excuse he could find to shut down the "Buyers' Gripes" thread;

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=266081&page=3

« Reply #311 on: October 19, 2010, 16:23 »
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As much as we would like to think buyers would go elsewhere because IS doesn't pay contributors enough it's not going to happen.

Of course!

Contributors are not "social case", so we don't need intervention of morality from someone, in this case buyers...
This only have to be problem between agency and contributors...

Aggressive campaign for our portfolios with "better deal" is a part of solution... But that have to be "united offensive"... :o
« Last Edit: October 19, 2010, 16:25 by borg »

donding

  • Think before you speak
« Reply #312 on: October 19, 2010, 17:01 »
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I see Lobo gratefully grabbed on the first excuse he could find to shut down the "Buyers' Gripes" thread;

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=266081&page=3


I'm sure there are more buyers seeing it locked and wondering why....They really haven't been under the fist of Lobo have they?

« Reply #313 on: October 19, 2010, 17:53 »
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 Things are not always what they seem Danielsan...


 Jonathan

« Reply #314 on: October 19, 2010, 17:56 »
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I see Lobo gratefully grabbed on the first excuse he could find to shut down the "Buyers' Gripes" thread;

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=266081&page=3


I read the whole thread. So it seems that the only way buyers are going to get any attention to their support tickets is by posting a complaint on the forum. Once everyone jumped in, THEN admins took notice and resolved GraceVineyards' support issue. Then conveniently locked the thread. That's just messed up.

« Reply #315 on: October 19, 2010, 17:57 »
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 Things are not always what they seem Danielsan...


 Jonathan

Can you elaborate, please?

« Reply #316 on: October 19, 2010, 19:37 »
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2. their very own village idiot running auroud in their forums insulting and mocking the the ppl who actually work for his pay, STFU-ing them by bans and locked threads if they wanted to discuss anything more serious then what they would like to have for next lunch.


:D :D :D :D

That is so true. Perfect example was the buyer's gripe thread being locked.
« Last Edit: October 19, 2010, 19:52 by caspixel »

« Reply #317 on: October 20, 2010, 16:19 »
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This buyer chose to post in the suggestion forum - I felt like suggesting that they post somewhere more visible (as it seems the suggestion forum isn't) but thought better of it.

« Reply #318 on: October 20, 2010, 23:12 »
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Hi CClapper,

 Nope! Have to do that homework on your own for this one. This might make a couple people happy on this site but I don't share everything till I put it to use myself. I am very sure that things are not what they seem. Sorry to be so mysterious but the writing is all over the wall if you spend hours on the internet tracking info or hear it from a very reliable source. Isn't this career awesome ;D

Good Luck,
Jonathan

« Reply #319 on: October 20, 2010, 23:31 »
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Hi CClapper,

 Nope! Have to do that homework on your own for this one. This might make a couple people happy on this site but I don't share everything till I put it to use myself. I am very sure that things are not what they seem. Sorry to be so mysterious but the writing is all over the wall if you spend hours on the internet tracking info or hear it from a very reliable source. Isn't this career awesome ;D

Good Luck,
Jonathan

Nope, not planning to do any homework of my own here. Your post is so cryptic, I don't even know who or what you are referring to. I will go back and re-read because I obviously missed something. for instance, who is Danielsan? So when you say things are not what they seem, are you talking about things at IS are not what they seem? Things that Lobo says are not what they seem? things on the IS forums are not what they seem?

I don't spend hours on the internet tracking info and I don't have reliable sources, so I guess I will remain in the dark.  ::)

« Reply #320 on: October 20, 2010, 23:52 »
0
I agree with Cclapper.  Except for recognizing the Karate Kid reference, I don't have the slightest idea what you were referring to Jonathan.

« Reply #321 on: October 21, 2010, 04:48 »
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I agree with Cclapper.  Except for recognizing the Karate Kid reference, I don't have the slightest idea what you were referring to Jonathan.

Nope, nothing there made any sense.  Although dropping the mysterious message did get him some attention.

Wax on, wax off!
« Last Edit: October 21, 2010, 07:02 by sjlocke »

« Reply #322 on: October 21, 2010, 05:08 »
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...and now for multiple crane kick exercises on an old pontoon support post to bananaramas "cruel summer"...

« Reply #323 on: October 21, 2010, 05:38 »
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Sweeeeep the Leggggggg!!!!

« Reply #324 on: October 21, 2010, 06:47 »
0
Hi CClapper,

 Nope! Have to do that homework on your own for this one. This might make a couple people happy on this site but I don't share everything till I put it to use myself. I am very sure that things are not what they seem. Sorry to be so mysterious but the writing is all over the wall if you spend hours on the internet tracking info or hear it from a very reliable source. Isn't this career awesome ;D

Good Luck,
Jonathan
On a completely unrelated note, do you anticipate having any files in the Agency collection (via Getty) Jonathan?


 

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