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Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on October 31, 2013, 18:16

Quote from: tickstock on October 31, 2013, 18:12

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on October 31, 2013, 18:07

For the record, my earnings are down about 40%, my sales are up about 33%.  To me, it looks like a double-whammy against istock: on one hand they are picking up 40% less in commissions from me than they used to, on the other hand, they have diverted sales from exclusives to me, depriving themselves of commission from high-priced sales. That makes the loss to them bigger than the loss I am experiencing.
If that isn't  a way of running a business into the ground I don't know what is.

So you don't think they lowered prices to bring back or attract new buyers?

Of course I do. But I don't think the strategy is working, you only have to see the complaints from exclusives about falling sales - and the reports from indes about rising sales (but falling revenues) to see that the main effect of the policy has been to redirect sales from exclusives to independents, not to bring in new customers.

Not all exclusives are having falling sales.

The vast majority seem to, if the statements exclusives are making reflect the facts. In the September thread there seemed to be only one person in the first 40 who was doing well, many of the others were 50%+ down, year on year.

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Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on October 31, 2013, 18:28

Quote from: tickstock on October 31, 2013, 18:19

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on October 31, 2013, 18:16

Quote from: tickstock on October 31, 2013, 18:12

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on October 31, 2013, 18:07

For the record, my earnings are down about 40%, my sales are up about 33%.  To me, it looks like a double-whammy against istock: on one hand they are picking up 40% less in commissions from me than they used to, on the other hand, they have diverted sales from exclusives to me, depriving themselves of commission from high-priced sales. That makes the loss to them bigger than the loss I am experiencing.
If that isn't  a way of running a business into the ground I don't know what is.

So you don't think they lowered prices to bring back or attract new buyers?

Of course I do. But I don't think the strategy is working, you only have to see the complaints from exclusives about falling sales - and the reports from indes about rising sales (but falling revenues) to see that the main effect of the policy has been to redirect sales from exclusives to independents, not to bring in new customers.

Not all exclusives are having falling sales.

The vast majority seem to, if the statements exclusives are making reflect the facts. In the September thread there seemed to be only one person in the first 40 who was doing well, many of the others were 50%+ down, year on year.

There are actually 5 that say they are up year on year out of the first 40 replies and another 1 or 2 that could be up but you can't tell either way from what they've said.

Oh, OK, let's just say that only 82.5% of exclusives are having a terrible time (see, I'm being generous and allowing you the two "could be up" in the tally).  In what way does that contradict my argument?

If most exclusive are suffering from falling earnings of up to 80% in some cases, and if the indes are suffering from a 42% earnings drop, then it is inconceivable that iStock is not suffering badly as a result of its latest strategy.

no Paul, all exclusives doing well don't talk

The problem at IS is that they've ruined their reputation.
One way they could get it back would be to have hundreds of happy contributors talking all over the internet about how great they are, like we used to.
Now, how could they achieve that?

You have a few more assumptions in there.  One is that people are equally likely to post whether they are up or down.  I think that is false if people are doing well they don't want to post because it can lead to copying.  I'm sure more people check out a portfolio of someone that says they had BME than the person that says they are having a terrible month.  Also the numbers in that thread for exclusives is probably 60-70% down and around 20% up with the rest somewhere in between.  There are a few repeat posts and indies posting.

That kinda boils down to arguing that we are incapable of knowing exactly what is going on, so we should ignore everything we do know and assume it's all all-right.

If you've been around long enough, you will know that in the past the monthly threads used to be happy-clappy sorts of places, with hordes of people reporting BMEs, so while there might be some resistance to letting people in on your success it was certainly not widespread. I don't see why the psychology of microstockers is supposed to have suddenly changed, turning them from joful open individuals into nervous, paranoid creatures who hide their light under a bushel.

IF you just go back to January's report http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=351109&page=1 you get a much more mixed picture, lots of people doing well and lots not so well. I find it a bit hard to believe that people decided sometime between January and September that they would no longer share any good news they had.

I can't tell you for certain what % of people are up or down, I can just tell you for sure that not every exclusive is down.  Even reading the monthly earnings thread you'll see people report that sales fell 40% compared to last year but royalties are the best ever.  Some people report only iStock downloads, some only iStock earnings, some count Getty and the PP too.  It's not always easy to tell what's being reported.

I must agree with tickstock here.  Not every exclusive is down.   Most of those doing well don't participate in the monthly earnings threads.   My own personal reason for not participating in those threads is that in my experience,  reporting a positive month is an effective and fast way to attract more copycats.  Lesson learnt!

Is that true for all nonexclusives?  I thought most people had reported something like 30% down but that was a while ago, I can't remember too many reports about this recently.

Oddly enough I'm only about 7% down since the price drop. Although that's 7% down on earnings that were already 90% down over the last couple of years, so it's not really saying much I guess. 7% of a small number isn't really anything to base any conclusions on.

I have no idea how many people don't report GI or PP sales but for me they make up around 30% of my income, if I stopped reporting those my numbers would look very different than what they actually are.  I could say that I've been down every month if I just left out 30% of my income.

So you are saying that your iS-only sales  have been declining steadily for a long time? Or are you saying that if you chose to change your method of assessing earnings from the total from GI/iS to iS only, then the second figure would be lower?
Of course, if you decide suddenly to change your method of reporting then you will get a different answer. So you choose to suggest that people reporting a fall in sales are inconsistent in the way they report - not only is that unlikely,  you don't have a shred of evidence to support it, so once again it is a red herring.
In the Jan sales thread you count 8 out of 40 saying they are up, compared with 5 out of 40 now,  and ask why I think that is a big difference - possibly because it is 60% more. Another of your red herrings - if your earnings went up 60% in a month, would that be a big difference? I rather think it might be. So, once again, you challenge what I said by producing evidence to support it and on that basis say my observation is wrong.
You suggest that people might have stopped reporting better sales because you have never reported sales. In other words, the fact you DIDN'T change your behaviour is evidence that other people DID change their behaviour - a major logic fail there, I think (but at least you have one person who says they did stop reporting for fear of copycats - not exactly overwhelming evidence of a general trend, though; and he didn't say that he reports bad months but not good ones, he's just excused himself entirely from the threads).
There seems to be an implication in your posts that people who do not report their earnings are all doing well and only those doing badly bother to report. There isn't a shred of evidence for that. Non-reporters may be suffering just as much as reporters but still stick strictly to a "no tell" policy, in which case the monthly report would still be an accurate reflection of where things have gone.
Throughout this discussion you haven't been able to refute a single thing I've said. Your responses agree with me when it comse to the facts that are available, your only argument is that there are facts we don't know and as the unknown counts for more than the known, my fact-based assessment must fall when tested against your assessment of what we don't know.
I bet you think global warming is a hoax, too!

@Baldrick

The data is not available. There are only individual snippets of data and lots of extrapolation. I certainly agree with Tickstock that people are far more likely to post in those threads if their sales are down and they are expressing frustration. Most people in other businesses would never go to an internet forum to bray about how well they are doing - it's a curious thing. You also have to remember that most contributors never post anything anywhere.

And what are you trying to derive from these snippets of data ? If it is about money then it clearly makes sense to report total sales including GI and PP - since that is where the business has shifted. If it is about how well Getty is performing and how any shift might relate to their strategies then that could not be extrapolated from such partial data. Lots of people seem to be reporting significantly increased PP sales - perhaps that means that Getty are doing well selling subs. But we can only guess. And a strategy may play out over a few years. Certainly the equilibrium has changed now that indy content is offered at roughly the same prices as they (indies) offer it at elsewhere.

Given the economy and increased competition - anyone who was doing well at the peak of the boom could reasonably expect to be considerably down unless they have  been continually producing very large quantities of very high quality work which is in demand. A non stellar 'exclusive' who is still earning around about the same is doing quite well - all things considered.

there are different sources, not just the complicated earnings threads, confirming that exclusives are losing sales and indes have gained sales since the change. But there in NO evidence that the change has brought back any buyers.

Data are available if you care to look.

There is no complete or normalised data. There are only a few anecdotal personal posts - not data. Snippets of information at best. The rest is speculative interpolation.

But more than that - what are you trying to determine about the strategy in general ? How can you have any sense of whether or not it is working when you have no idea what the aim is or what kind of time frame is involved ? For all you know Getty may be expecting to sell fewer images via iStock. They may be expecting to sell fewer images in general. I am sure that what they are doing is also going to be about trying to shape the market - that may mean losing sales in some quarters.

Some people are reporting fewer sales but broadly equivalent incomes. We cannot call that data either. Though I know that I much prefer to sell fewer images for more money.

FWIW - I am completely neutral on this - it is all just interesting. If I thought that the sky was falling in I would say so. And I am a big fan of one or two of the other sites - because I love photography - I love looking at really great work. I also very much support the idea of there being alternatives. But my sense over the past 6 months is that Getty is playing a long game and that they know very well what they are doing. I believe it is a significantly different company than it was during the H&F era.