Just in wait-and-see mode at this point

It's getting more popular that jumping off tall bridges and hoping there's water, and that it's warm 

The same reasons why one mega restaurant can't control the beef supply or someone else can't control the supply of most anything else, and drive the competition out as a result, is also why one stock agency can't get "all" the good photographers to go exclusive, no matter what their program promises.

I'll toss in what the "perfect" stock site would be. (feel free to tell me I'm crazy or it's just plane dumb.)

Lets call it a co-operative, because I don't know what else to call it.

Photographers upload photos and everyone has to do a specified amount of volunteer reviewing per month, based on how many photos they upload. So someone who uploads two photos would have to do less work than someone who contributes 1000 photos. As you perform the reviews, your photos would be moved into the review que.

Flaw is that some people would find that their photos were being refused by people who wanted to cut down the competition. So there would also be a review, or challenge to an independent appeal reviewer, for any questions. This would be a paid position of reviewer appeals.

People who don't have the time to review and do their part of the work, could forfeit 10% of their months earnings, to pay for hired reviewers. Same as below, excess is returned to the co-op.

When a photo sells, the member gets nothing until the end of the month. Every month, the agency profits would be calculated, 40% deducted for operations (see reviewer above, programming, monitors, server space, Etc.)  60% assigned to every member who had a download that month.

Hypothetical numbers. There are 50,000 photos downloaded in February. The gross profit is $50,000. 40% or $20,000 is deducted for operations, leaving $30,000 to be divided between the images and photographers who had a download and meet the minimum payout of $50. That translates into 60c per photo downloaded, for everyone!

People who are under $50 will have that credited to their account, until they reach payout. If someone decides to close their account, they will be paid all their credits and have their photos removed within 30 days.

Should the 40% be too high and there's an excess, or insufficient, after the first year, the operations percentage will be reduced or increased to create a zero budget situation. Either way, the contributors will divide profits based on their individual sales numbers as part of the total months profit.

OK so how's that? Operator owned, self regulated, self reviewed and all profits are returned to the co-op owners, who are the contributors. The only money taken out is for maintaining the site and any paid positions such as a manager, accountant, review appeals.

Should regulations and rules need to be decided, one vote per contributing member. A democratic process and equal voting representation for all members.

The co-op would be operated as a non-profit Corp.

Im with hatman here- mixing business with politics screws up both.

when do the subscriptions start anyhow?

Racephoto - a similar enough model works very well in most law and accounting firms ....

Non-exclusives will get a minimum $.19 .

wow, this thread has all ready made it into the top 10 list!!

it still appears to be confusing and rather disappointing ,hope I am wrong!

Quote from: stokfoto on April 20, 2008, 05:56

it still appears to be confusing and rather disappointing ,hope I am wrong!

 I guess I don't see what's to be disappointed about... but that's just me I guess.

my biggest concern about sub models  it may encourage ppd buyers to switch into sub buyers especially as the  price gap between the two models widens  (subs and ppd)

Quote from: stokfoto on April 20, 2008, 06:51

my biggest concern about sub models  it may encourage ppd buyers to switch into sub buyers especially as the  price gap between the two models widens  (subs and ppd)

In this case--where we are guaranteed to make *at least as much* (and possibly more) from the sub buyer as we do from the pay-per-image buyer--why is that a bad thing? If the price gap widens, it is only widening to our benefit.

thank you for your input

ok I see your point and agree with that as long as there is no lose in our income it sounds fine.I am not a maths person so I don't quite understand how it will work.anyway perhaps it's  best wait and see.

as for price gap obviously I have nothing against prices to go up but what I mean is when ppd prices go up I think sub prices should    too in order to  keep the ratio at same level  thus not making buyers wanting to switch from one to another. I am not only referring to IS prices but all other site that is offering subs.

Do I understand it right, we can opt-in or out as we wish, even at image by image level?

Regards,
Adelaide

yes you can opt out even at the image level - images that are opted out will show up in the search labelled with a little leaf icon. Given you are guaranteed a minimum payout of 19c per credit (same minimum as now with the cheapest credit bundle), there doesn't seem to be any reason to opt out as all it's doing is cutting down potential sales.

Yes, you are right about that and I've thought that same thing. I guess I'm working under the assumption that there will still be a large base of pay-as-you-go customers, and that the sub customers will include those who were not buying anything before. My personal experience has been that the January price increase cut my downloads by about 20-30% while maintaining the same level of income, or more. I think it will all balance out in the end, and I would rather have a greater number of lower priced downloads than the opposite. They equal the same at the end of the month, but only one progresses me toward my next canister payout level (as an exclusive).

It's definitely a wait and see scenario, but I'm cautiously optimistic.

Edited to add some real numbers:
Under the sub plan, I'm guaranteed a minimum of .28 per credit (based on 30% x 94 cent min). Just to give an idea of my averages right now, for the last 10 purchases, I've received as my 30% royalty:

1 credit - .38
10 credits - 3.70
10 credits - 3.60
10 credits - 3.80
10 credit - 3.40
15 credit - 5.40
5 credit - 1.95
10 credit - 3.40
10 credit - 3.30
5 credit - 2.10

So if my purchases ONLY come from subs, and ONLY from customers who download their full limit every single day that I get a download, and the volume stays the exactly the same, I stand to lose a considerable amount of income. It shouldn't take very long to see how likely that scenario will be. I'm planning to remain opted-in for at least 60 days before drawing any conclusions.

From all of the official IS explanations that I have read and analyzing the #'s, there is one thing that I have realized this is yet not explained well (that I have seen, maybe I am missing seeing the magic sentence) that may not be the most favorable.

It relates to the minimum guarantee.  I have not found the minimum guarantee per credit language (please correct me if I am wrong).  It seems moreso that they guarantee a bare minimum, that no file can be sold that will net a royalty of less than .19, but that only relates to the smallest files.  From what I have seen it is entirely possible that for larger files that # can in fact dip below .19 per credit, they just guarantee that you will get at least .19 for the download.  If this is the case (I hope that I am wrong, but not heartbroken if I am not), then some may not be too happy about it.  However I do think that the two extreme cases, where the customer downloads the quota completely triggering the .19 floor, or vice versa where you get an only sale lottery ticket, will be rare cases.  The full quotas will show up at first, but over time as the novelty wears off we'll see on average that just about every sub sale is from a customer partially using their quota. 

It will be interesting as we will be able to plot trends, once it starts a good thread to have going would be the average credit per sub that people are seeing, so that customer trends with regards to # DL'ed and % of sub used on average per day will come to light.  We will be able to see how it changes over time, if good or bad trends, for us, are developing, and also use the data to project onto other sites to see just how much they they are or aren't gouging us with their model.  It is entirely possible that we will spot some trends and project some data that will make many people absolutely furious with a site like SS with how much photographers are getting the shaft with their model (or the flipside, we can question how SS is even profitable), as IS's means of doing it allows a data transparency that is hidden behind the curtains at other sites, closely guarded secrets kept from the contributers.