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Author Topic: What is happening to iStock?  (Read 28269 times)

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madman

    This user is banned.
« on: August 01, 2015, 11:33 »
+16
I am very angry with istock for what has happened in recent years, istock doesnt care anymore exclusive artist, lots of exclusives turn to non-exclusive recent years, me too, because of exclusivity has no meaning anymore...

My revenus decrase 4-5 times in recent 2 years while I am in exclusive and now almost 10 times down since I left exclusivity....

I am very angry with istock because I feel like to be fired my job....

I am very angry with istock because istock doesnt care and listen contributors anymore...

I am very angry with istock because our works and efforts serving agencies at very tragic-comic prices and we all lost money...


« Reply #1 on: August 01, 2015, 11:35 »
0
If you're doing bad at iStock you'll make it up on your other sites, no big deal.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #2 on: August 01, 2015, 11:44 »
+10
If you're doing bad at iStock you'll make it up on your other sites, no big deal.
Not necessarily.
Some report that they are doing better by spreading their assets, others say they're doing worse.
As always, it depends on so many factors, one's port being only one.

« Reply #3 on: August 01, 2015, 12:47 »
+6
I am very angry with istock for what has happened in recent years, istock doesnt care anymore exclusive artist, lots of exclusives turn to non-exclusive recent years, me too, because of exclusivity has no meaning anymore...

My revenus decrase 4-5 times in recent 2 years while I am in exclusive and now almost 10 times down since I left exclusivity....

I am very angry with istock because I feel like to be fired my job....

I am very angry with istock because istock doesnt care and listen contributors anymore...

I am very angry with istock because our works and efforts serving agencies at very tragic-comic prices and we all lost money...

getty bought IS and tried to raise pricing slowly for micro stock images. they had good intentions and benefited contributors for a while until Shutterstock gained more market share and awareness. getty miscalculated and was too aggressive in pricing and the product presentation got more confusing causing more buyer exodus.

the whole idea, was to make more money for them and us... but subscriptions and cheaper pricing pretty much killed that initiative. it happens.

getty went into panic mode and has been trying to establish its brand as a middle-stock content provider while competing with SS's price points. i see signs that the ship is slowing turning around.

yep... we are all frustrated about IS/gettys downward slide from 2012 but that is how markets work sometimes.

Now that shutterstock is a public company, i expect some blunders and aggressive behavior in their future as well....

« Last Edit: August 01, 2015, 12:51 by Holmes »

madman

    This user is banned.
« Reply #4 on: August 01, 2015, 12:53 »
+3
already I leave exclusivity, I was forced  to do so, because my income was decreasing gradually like it never stopped, despite I raise my portfolio to 3 times...

we loose, them loose, look at istock alexa visitors graph, constantly and dramatically decrasing... 

seems to istock is killing itself slowly and they dont do anything to fix it...

I dont understand what is happening to istock, really dont....
« Last Edit: August 01, 2015, 13:03 by madman »

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #5 on: August 01, 2015, 13:06 »
+7
already I leave exclusivity, I was forced  to do so, because my income was decreasing gradually like it never stopped, despite I raise my portfolio to 3 times... we loose, them loose, look at istock alexa visitors graph, constantly and dramatically decreasing...

I don't understand what is happening to istock, really don't....
Getty had a dreadful reputation with photographers for a while before they bought iStock.

But also, as the competition were not raising prices from rock bottom, they were on a sticky wicket.
It's like supermarket competition in the UK: the price wars have meant that  what were the better supermarkets are stocking fewer lines to sell cheaper to bump up profitability, and the quality of what they sell is often decreasing to hold price points. For the buyer, it means it's far more difficult to source things physically, so more and more things which we could easily buy in local-ish shops until recently can now only be found online, adding postage and packing costs and the bother of delivery.
Similarly, with new files at iStock only getting subs sales, if that, it's not viable or sustainable to supply low-demand, low supply files which used to fare reasonably there, ultimately lowering choice for buyers.
« Last Edit: August 01, 2015, 13:17 by ShadySue »

Shelma1

  • stockcoalition.org
« Reply #6 on: August 01, 2015, 13:17 »
+1
already I leave exclusivity, I was forced  to do so, because my income was decreasing gradually like it never stopped, despite I raise my portfolio to 3 times... we loose, them loose, look at istock alexa visitors graph, constantly and dramatically decreasing...

I don't understand what is happening to istock, really don't....
Getty had a dreadful reputation with photographers for a while before they bought iStock.

But also, as the competition were not raising prices from rock bottom, they were on a sticky wicket.
It's like supermarket competition in the UK: the price wars have meant that  what were the better supermarkets are stocking fewer lines to sell cheaper to bump up profitability, and the quality of what they sell is often decreasing to hold price points. For the buyer, it's means it's far more difficult to source things physically, so more and more things which we could easily buy in localish shops until recently can now only be found online, adding postage and packing costs and the bother of delivery.
Similarly, with new files at iStock only getting subs sales, if that, it's not viable or sustainable to supply low-demand, low supply files which used to fare reasonably there, ultimately lowering choice for buyers.

Oh...you should watch all the gardening allotment videos on YouTube, then! Growing your own veggies seems to be a trend in the UK.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #7 on: August 01, 2015, 13:24 »
+2
already I leave exclusivity, I was forced  to do so, because my income was decreasing gradually like it never stopped, despite I raise my portfolio to 3 times... we loose, them loose, look at istock alexa visitors graph, constantly and dramatically decreasing...

I don't understand what is happening to istock, really don't....
Getty had a dreadful reputation with photographers for a while before they bought iStock.

But also, as the competition were not raising prices from rock bottom, they were on a sticky wicket.
It's like supermarket competition in the UK: the price wars have meant that  what were the better supermarkets are stocking fewer lines to sell cheaper to bump up profitability, and the quality of what they sell is often decreasing to hold price points. For the buyer, it's means it's far more difficult to source things physically, so more and more things which we could easily buy in localish shops until recently can now only be found online, adding postage and packing costs and the bother of delivery.
Similarly, with new files at iStock only getting subs sales, if that, it's not viable or sustainable to supply low-demand, low supply files which used to fare reasonably there, ultimately lowering choice for buyers.

Oh...you should watch all the gardening allotment videos on YouTube, then! Growing your own veggies seems to be a trend in the UK.
It is, but I'm establishing a wildlife garden.  8)
I wasn't thinking particularly of veg. Recently it was quite a palaver to find French mustard, formerly an absolute basic in any small shop.

« Reply #8 on: August 01, 2015, 13:45 »
+40
There is some serious revisionist history going on here - iStock's troubles did not come about because of price competition from Shutterstock, IMO

Shutterstock has been around since 2004 and has done nothing but increase its prices over time.

iStock was doing fine raising prices and introducing the Vetta collection (which I was initially very skeptical about) at first. Whether you agreed with every decision the editors made or not, you could see that the more expensive images were not the same as the cheaper ones.

Getty and their two private equity owners started down the road to the current mess when they jacked the prices up significantly, introduced the Agency collection and poured a bunch of old Getty stuff onto iStock - suposedly as "exclusive" even though it wasn't - charging even more (most went in as Agency). Anyone remember the flash picture of the bathroom door? The underexposed fruit slices with black bars down the side and so on?

You can't charge premium prices for content without the buyers understanding the difference between the price tiers. Looking at any search results, any buyer would be hard pressed to figure out why things are priced the way they are.

The reason? The private equity owners wanted out but couldn't given the state of the company and financial markets and so larded Getty with debt to pay themselves a "dividend" of over half a billion dollars.

The business was not able to soak both buyers and contributors to pay these leeches without suffering loss of designers, contributors and bucketloads of goodwill.

Getty/iStock have done this to themselves and Shutterstock has eagerly courted Getty's corporate customers, happily taking advantage of every eff up.

Getty then convinced themselves that the problem was price, and lurched into badly priced subscriptions and even worse one price for all on credit sales - driving away any small design firms they hadn't already lost.

If the problem was price competition, iStock would never have been the leader up until 2010/11 as the other sites were always cheaper. The big slide in iStock has only come since then when its primary competitor, Shutterstock, has only increased prices, not cut them.

« Reply #9 on: August 01, 2015, 14:01 »
+14
What affect me most, is when they got rid of the canister level and use the year credit level system. With their price raise and all changes, I sold less, and then got less even if I was diamond. And now it's just got worst and worst. But thank that it goes very well on shutterstock, and I think the stability of SS help a lot to succeed with buyers and contributors.

« Reply #10 on: August 01, 2015, 14:09 »
+14
What affect me most, is when they got rid of the canister level and use the year credit level system. With their price raise and all changes, I sold less, and then got less even if I was diamond. And now it's just got worst and worst. But thank that it goes very well on shutterstock, and I think the stability of SS help a lot to succeed with buyers and contributors.

I agree with you and JoAnn.  The cannister changes were when they start losing the goodwill of the contributors,  and Getty never thought about that lots of the contributors were buyers too so the angry sellers took their business to other sites and stopped buying at Istock. Everything was downhill after that.  Lots of people say this and I believe its true.

« Reply #11 on: August 01, 2015, 14:43 »
+1
There is some serious revisionist history going on here - iStock's troubles did not come about because of price competition from Shutterstock, IMO

Shutterstock has been around since 2004 and has done nothing but increase its prices over time.

iStock was doing fine raising prices and introducing the Vetta collection (which I was initially very skeptical about) at first. Whether you agreed with every decision the editors made or not, you could see that the more expensive images were not the same as the cheaper ones.

Getty and their two private equity owners started down the road to the current mess when they jacked the prices up significantly, introduced the Agency collection and poured a bunch of old Getty stuff onto iStock - suposedly as "exclusive" even though it wasn't - charging even more (most went in as Agency). Anyone remember the flash picture of the bathroom door? The underexposed fruit slices with black bars down the side and so on?

You can't charge premium prices for content without the buyers understanding the difference between the price tiers. Looking at any search results, any buyer would be hard pressed to figure out why things are priced the way they are.

The reason? The private equity owners wanted out but couldn't given the state of the company and financial markets and so larded Getty with debt to pay themselves a "dividend" of over half a billion dollars.

The business was not able to soak both buyers and contributors to pay these leeches without suffering loss of designers, contributors and bucketloads of goodwill.

Getty/iStock have done this to themselves and Shutterstock has eagerly courted Getty's corporate customers, happily taking advantage of every eff up.

Getty then convinced themselves that the problem was price, and lurched into badly priced subscriptions and even worse one price for all on credit sales - driving away any small design firms they hadn't already lost.

If the problem was price competition, iStock would never have been the leader up until 2010/11 as the other sites were always cheaper. The big slide in iStock has only come since then when its primary competitor, Shutterstock, has only increased prices, not cut them.

* Snover! you know your stuff. thanks for filling in the blanks on my post:)
question:
what do you think of the current state of IS/getty and future prospects. it appears the futzing has stabilized for the moment. (did i really say that?) :o


« Reply #12 on: August 01, 2015, 15:27 »
+9
...what do you think of the current state of IS/getty and future prospects. it appears the futzing has stabilized for the moment. (did i really say that?) :o


I think that they have one big problem they haven't figured out. 3 credits versus 1 credit for essentially the same content -search for orange slice, woman gym, new home and you can't see any reason that one image is three times the price of another.

And they still have the should-have-been-rejected content that came from off site and flooded the collection with rubbish - two examples (no surprise they haven't sold since 2013):

http://www.istockphoto.com/photo/close-up-of-orange-slice-25406435
http://www.istockphoto.com/photo/juicy-green-apple-25406521

There are smaller problems - the site regularly not working well and some really odd choices with the "new" interface versus the "classic"; inspection standards that I hear let just about anything in (when they used to have some of the most exacting standards, at least for technical excellence); no inexpensive sizes for blog or web use any more.

Why would you shop at iStock if you were a buyer? You have so many other choices that are a whole lot easier to deal with.

madman

    This user is banned.
« Reply #13 on: August 01, 2015, 15:28 »
+1
in my opinion, microstock sites doesnt good way for making good money anymore, especially iStock,

Although I upload more and more new images, I saw my income dropped from day by day,

I waited two years to recover and I continued to upload new images, but nothing changed,

so, why should I produce new images by spending my precious time?

Instead of, I deal with another business to make more money.


madman

    This user is banned.
« Reply #14 on: August 01, 2015, 15:45 »
+2
Why would you shop at iStock if you were a buyer? You have so many other choices that are a whole lot easier to deal with.

I think most of buyers already chosen other agencies, all situations show it so.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #15 on: August 01, 2015, 16:02 »
+2
I think that they have one big problem they haven't figured out. 3 credits versus 1 credit for essentially the same content -search for orange slice, woman gym, new home and you can't see any reason that one image is three times the price of another.
That is totally true.  Makes no sense whatsoever.

« Reply #16 on: August 01, 2015, 16:09 »
0
I think that they have one big problem they haven't figured out. 3 credits versus 1 credit for essentially the same content -search for orange slice, woman gym, new home and you can't see any reason that one image is three times the price of another.
That is totally true.  Makes no sense whatsoever.
Buyers are still willing to pay for exclusive content, don't shoot generic shots and they'll have to if they want them.  That argument seems to be more problematic for SS now that Adobe and iStock are cheaper for nonexclusive content and that's the exact same content not just kinda similar content.
« Last Edit: August 01, 2015, 16:17 by tickstock »

« Reply #17 on: August 01, 2015, 18:19 »
+3
I am sharing your pain. If we don't take control of our sales, agencies, be it iStock or SS, will not hesitate to devalue our work as long as they have unlimited supply of images.

Exclusive contents is only valuable when an agency is selling them as such. My sales are so bad these days that I don't even look at the numbers anymore.

I am not going to leave IS for SS either. However, I am not uploading any unique images to IS anymore.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #18 on: August 01, 2015, 18:42 »
+3
My experience is:
1. Nothing uploaded in the past ages is selling as credit sales. My old scans from before I was a contributor are far more likely to sell than anything from the past 2+ years.
     1b. The New search isn't new as such.
2. Newish uploads can sell as subs. I have no way of knowing if subs buyers see a different best match than credit buyers.
     2b. So no matter if my subject matter is unique on the Top 4, if uploaded in the past two - three years, I get 75c for it.
     2c. So apart from stupidly going out and shooting an editorial series when they told us editorial was going to be mirrored to Getty  :-[, I'm not making any effort to shoot things for iStock.
3. In any case, you can have something unique, which sells, then an indie comes along, undercuts you, and a buyer can filter out your images with one tick in a box.

And now buyers can be even more confused, as new indies (viz ex-exclusive) sometimes still have their old files listed as Exclusive, even when they're not. (How can that be legal?)
« Last Edit: August 02, 2015, 11:16 by ShadySue »

« Reply #19 on: August 01, 2015, 18:48 »
+5
The whole point is, I have figured out that I cannot control what others do. All I can do is to do what I can control.

Trying to work like a slave for iStock, or Alamy or SS, will work for a while only.

madman

    This user is banned.
« Reply #20 on: August 02, 2015, 03:58 »
0
I do not enter the istock site for a few days because I'm afraid to see my terrify falling downloads... thats scary but thats true guys...
« Last Edit: August 02, 2015, 04:01 by madman »

« Reply #21 on: August 02, 2015, 05:44 »
+7
There is some serious revisionist history going on here - iStock's troubles did not come about because of price competition from Shutterstock, IMO

Shutterstock has been around since 2004 and has done nothing but increase its prices over time.

iStock was doing fine raising prices and introducing the Vetta collection (which I was initially very skeptical about) at first. Whether you agreed with every decision the editors made or not, you could see that the more expensive images were not the same as the cheaper ones.

Getty and their two private equity owners started down the road to the current mess when they jacked the prices up significantly, introduced the Agency collection and poured a bunch of old Getty stuff onto iStock - suposedly as "exclusive" even though it wasn't - charging even more (most went in as Agency). Anyone remember the flash picture of the bathroom door? The underexposed fruit slices with black bars down the side and so on?

You can't charge premium prices for content without the buyers understanding the difference between the price tiers. Looking at any search results, any buyer would be hard pressed to figure out why things are priced the way they are.

The reason? The private equity owners wanted out but couldn't given the state of the company and financial markets and so larded Getty with debt to pay themselves a "dividend" of over half a billion dollars.

The business was not able to soak both buyers and contributors to pay these leeches without suffering loss of designers, contributors and bucketloads of goodwill.

Getty/iStock have done this to themselves and Shutterstock has eagerly courted Getty's corporate customers, happily taking advantage of every eff up.

Getty then convinced themselves that the problem was price, and lurched into badly priced subscriptions and even worse one price for all on credit sales - driving away any small design firms they hadn't already lost.

If the problem was price competition, iStock would never have been the leader up until 2010/11 as the other sites were always cheaper. The big slide in iStock has only come since then when its primary competitor, Shutterstock, has only increased prices, not cut them.

Excellent summary. I think the only point you've missed is the role of Bruce Livingstone in all this. You remember when iStock introduced country based pricing that charged more for users in UK and Europe? It was protested, taken back and Bruce apologized. And if I remember correctly, it was about a year after Bruce left that the Agency collection was introduced, the RC levels were introduced.

To me the whole thing was the change from someone with an entrepreneurial mindset at the top towards people with calculators and spreadsheets leading the company that was the main cause for all that has developed from then on.

« Reply #22 on: August 02, 2015, 06:21 »
+5
The new interface simply doesn't work at all, it messes up searches, it hides search options, it irritates customers that leave fast. Hard to understand how after months of moths of this problem, they haven't come back to the old one.

madman

    This user is banned.
« Reply #23 on: August 02, 2015, 07:59 »
0
I'd give up now, :'(

I will not any new upload to istock, coz that is completely waste of time,

coz, new uploads does not bring any significant revenue from istock (I've been trying since 2 years)

coz, the more you upload, the more you earn with another microstock sites systems are better than istock's new more upload, less earn system.
« Last Edit: August 02, 2015, 08:55 by madman »

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #24 on: August 02, 2015, 08:18 »
+9
The new interface simply doesn't work at all, it messes up searches, it hides search options, it irritates customers that leave fast. Hard to understand how after months of moths of this problem, they haven't come back to the old one.
Because somehow they've been indoctrinated to believe that the new interface is somehow better, despite all the evidence to the contrary.
Like somehow someone persuaded them to outsource writing titles in English to people whose first language isn't English. What a farce  >:(
There's someone really gullable and aggressive at the top and no-one dares tell them when they're wrong. The same attitude has virtually silenced any meaningful discussion with contributors.


 

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