I always thought it was a little silly that the bar was ever dropped to 250. At that level, there's nothing all that exclusive about exclusivity. Anyone can do it. Even 500 doesn't seem too difficult.

I guess it was to stop people from considering uploading elsewhere. Some people who start submitting to multiple agencies become iStock independent later; others find that iStock does not provide enough of a %age of their total to make exclusivity an attractive option.
If iStock sets the bar quite low, maybe a highish proportion of newbies (pure speculation) don't try elsewhere.

It looks to me like they just doubled all the canister levels without thinking through all the consequences.  I still think it is likely they will backtrack a bit, to make us all feel like we have won.

Perhaps with exclusive images costing more, they think non-exclusives will now sell more, so reaching 500 wont be a problem.  I don't think they should close the door on new people going exclusive.  There might be a few amazing contributors who haven't picked up a camera yet.

Roger's comment is in response to translucent members who are upset that they won't grandfathered. Exclusives will be grandfathered but non-exlcusives won't. Translucents who want to be exclusive but won't make it to 250 dls by the cut are supposed to contact IS directly and IS will decide if they grandfather them on a case by case basis.