I'm more than 50% down in downloads over Thanksgiving Thursday and Friday, over 70% down in dollars. This tells me that the European share of sales has fallen dramatically this year... How are your figures?

Or another way of looking at it is that 50% of your downloads and 70% of your income comes from the US.

It's a bit of a drastic statement just based on two days sales - advance warning expect your downloads to drop to almost zero over 25th/26th December, but that doesn't mean iStock is dead worldwide 

My past two weeks on iStock have been really grim. I don't put it down to the Thanksgiving holiday, as in the past three years there wasn't a dip as bad as this in Thanksgiving week, and as the OP suggested, European sales (and Canadian, Australian etc) shouldn't have been affected. On Thursday and Friday I had no sales at all in European business time.
However, some people have reported good weeks. Maybe a best match change, though I haven't noticed (in my regular 'markers') a best match difference so big that it could cause that effect.
What's certain is that overall, things at iStock must have been fine or Big Changes would be made.
Added: This week in '08 and '09 were within a dollar of each other, but this week has netted marginally over half of the amount for the past two years. DLs are just over a quarter of what they were in Nov 08.
Although my Nov may equal, or - with a following wind - surpass, my BMY, it's miles below Nov 09, and many miles below Nov 08, which is still my BME, by miles.

SS and Fotolia don't seem to get hit as hard by thanksgiving.  I don't care any more about istock.  The commission cut was the final straw for me, now the only thing I do there is deactivate my images.  I wont leave, as there's a slim chance they will sell to owners that aren't just focused on taking more money from their contributors.  If that doesn't happen, my portfolio will slowly disappear.

Dont be foolish!  were all in the same boat, whats the point in deactivating?  youve put down a lot of work, long hours, etc, etc.  What happend at IS,  is the hallmark of whats going, probably to happen, sooner or later with all the sites.
Its not as it used to be, you know, today investors, bankers, etc, owns creative outlets and thats the problem.

Bad weather in a lot of places in the UK. Snow and freezing conditions. An inch of snow here and normal life grinds to a halt. Could be something to do with it.

Dont be foolish!  were all in the same boat,

The Titanic?

whats the point in deactivating?,

Revenge 

youve put down a lot of work, long hours, etc, etc.,

As in LuckyOliver, Pixamba, Featurepics, Zymmetrical.

What happend at IS,  is the hallmark of whats going, probably to happen, sooner or later with all the sites.

15% at the tail of the search engine and 85% for some corporate sharks? No thanks. I'm often Mother Theresa but not if 85% goes to bonuses for a private equity firm. For 15%, I'd prefer to throw my moderate stuff on Flickr for free. It's a free world. Contributing to IS was a mistake. Contributing to SS was not.

From now on I'm going to upload so much to the other sites that IS sooner or later becomes unimportant to my overall earnings. It's not happening overnight though.

bs'ing the exclusives into believing that they are going to become millionaires,

Must say I missed that info, do you have a link?

Quote from: lagereek on November 29, 2010, 05:24

Dont be foolish!  were all in the same boat, whats the point in deactivating?  youve put down a lot of work, long hours, etc, etc.  What happend at IS,  is the hallmark of whats going, probably to happen, sooner or later with all the sites.
Its not as it used to be, you know, today investors, bankers, etc, owns creative outlets and thats the problem.

First, we're not all in the same boat; we independents are being treated particularly badly, even as iStock adjusts its other programs to at least partially compensate exclusives for their loss of royalty percentage.  And secondly, what happens at iStock will only influence the rest of the market to the degree we permit it by quiet acceptance.  I won't accept it, and I hope all the other agencies show a better long term business sense.  I'm continuing to delete a few images a day from iStock.  Granted, it's still the worst performers that I'm removing, but once those are gone it'll be the small money earners and then the medium and eventually my best sellers.  I won't stop until either they're all gone or iStock's current or new owners treat my work with more respect.

Question, why are you only deleting your non-sellers or worst performers. Wouldn't it better if you just deleted your top sellers?  I mean if you're going to take a stand deleting the top sellers would really show them.

Question, why are you only deleting your non-sellers or worst performers. Wouldn't it better if you just deleted your top sellers?  I mean if you're going to take a stand deleting the top sellers would really show them.

Because I'm greedy, and I'd like to maximize my income from iStock as I head out the door.  And because I can send a message now, before the royalty cut takes effect, by reducing the size of my portfolio (and the required comment on each deactivation makes the reason clear).  And because if there's even a faint hope of reconsideration on their part, whatever I've left are the images that are most likely to make money.  Which makes it a weaker gesture than just deleting everything, but I figure any action at all makes a point.

From now on I'm going to upload so much to the other sites that IS sooner or later becomes unimportant to my overall earnings.

This has been my plan. I stopped uploading to IS a few months ago. My IS sales have dropped in half, but the sales at other sites more than make up for the loss. Why should I contribute to IS when they want to drive non-exclusives out of business? IS is the enemy now, how else can you look at it?

Re Thanksgiving weekend. It was my best weekend ever at SS, and was pretty good elsewhere (not IS of course).

Bad weather in a lot of places in the UK. Snow and freezing conditions. An inch of snow here and normal life grinds to a halt. Could be something to do with it.

Hi Dave!  how goes?

Dont even mention the weather!!!!  we had four days of snow, leaving 50 cm of snow deapth, horrible, plus a damned Nordic/arctic storm wind, plus some 13 below zero!  havent you noticed how deadly quiet these global-warming people have become,  not a word.

More easily than many people, designers can surely work from home?