Quote from: lisafx on May 18, 2013, 10:29

Perhaps after this period of rebalancing occurs, the market will settle back to mass produced HPV images being sold at high prices, and LPV, inexpensive images by mom & pop producers will once again dominate the micro sites.

10 years ago when the microstock boom began things were very different. There was a huge demand for cheap images because so many new and existing companies were coming online for the first time. Plus a whole new market supplying small community publishing and cheap marketing. And there were relatively few people supplying microstock initially. That boom in cheap content ended relatively soon after the financial bubble burst. Most of the internet gets its pictures for free today thanks to phone cameras.

SS have performed well against that trend probably be taking business from other sites and certainly by spending lots on advertising. But I cannot see that there is much room to grow the market for content with lower production values when that content is competing with free. Low paying customers are expensive to service.

By LPV, I don't mean cr@p.  Obviously images that sell for any money at all will have to be better than free stuff, but that's a pretty low bar and one that most microstock producers already surpass. 

I think FLICKR more than Yuri has something to do with the death of subscription microstock as we know it (if there is any death at all)
Getty now is able to offer clients more than SS, they offer expensive stuff, medium cost images, cheap crap, subscriptions and more in one portal.
The only reason IMO lot of people preferred SS was because huge content, IS could not offer then a subscription site as big as SS.
Now Getty in filling TS and Photos.com of content.
Getty through IS created a way contributors get compensation depending quality and exclusivity.
SS ignored any other way of offering content beside micro price subscription, and I think it was a big mistake.
I think what Yuri saw when signed with getty was more income and more exposure, if someone knows today about Microstock and stock in general is mr accurs.
He is just surrendering to the evident.

The model is changing, not dying, IMO

other than reading other peoples' opinions about Yuri, I've had very few of my own about him. I don't know him. but this move speaks volumes, about the industry, about Getty and about greed versus principle.

Yuri, this seems like kind of a "screw you rest of the industry, now I'm the king of the playground". to each his own I guess.

1) "Hmm... that pic I wanted of a doctor next to a smiling patient is gone from (insert agency name here)... oh wait, there are several hundred just like it.  I'll buy one of those."

+1

And just think of the server disc space that will be freed up at the microstocks, once Arcurs and a couple other big players are gone.   

Quote from: aspp on May 18, 2013, 11:00

The market for cheap content is in decline IMO.

curiously SS grows "every 4 months"

if the market for cheap content is declining, is the market for expensive content growing?

Post 2008 ( + 18 appx months for the effects to be realised) I strongly suspect that SS have done well by taking customers from other sites rather than by growing the market. I suspect they have won that business by spending heavily on advertising. And not all of their content is cheap anyhow. I also suspect that at least one company have at least partially decided that low paying customers are too expensive to service, or certainly too expensive to chase.

Is the market for expensive content growing ? I think that a market for somewhat more expensive better quality content is growing yes. Still much less expensive than bespoke content and still relatively much less expensive than stock cost before micro. I think that people producing great work probably expect to sell less often for more. (Which is partly why I think Stocksy is looking good).

I suspect that a subs market for high production value content is unsustainable.

it would be interesting to see if any other big players will follow yuri.
one thing does not match with what Yuri wrote here about cost of producing images in order in stay microstock, couple of years ago he wrote production for him was becoming very cheap

Quote from: luissantos84 on May 18, 2013, 11:13

Quote from: aspp on May 18, 2013, 11:00

The market for cheap content is in decline IMO.

curiously SS grows "every 4 months"

if the market for cheap content is declining, is the market for expensive content growing?

Post 2008 ( + 18 appx months for the effects to be realised) I strongly suspect that SS have done well by taking customers from other sites rather than by growing the market. I suspect they have won that business by spending heavily on advertising. And not all of their content is cheap anyhow. I also suspect that at least one company have at least partially decided that low paying customers are too expensive to service, or certainly too expensive to chase.

Is the market for expensive content growing ? I think that a market for somewhat more expensive better quality content is growing yes. Still much less expensive than bespoke content and still relatively much less expensive than stock cost before micro. I think that people producing great work probably expect to sell less often for more. (Which is partly why I think Stocksy is looking good).

I suspect that a subs market for high production value content is unsustainable.

Sean reported a 96% drop (from April 2012) so don't tell me Stocksy is "the thing" of the future and buyers are crazy about that type of model

what chances of surviving do you think "agencies" like Stocksy have comparing to a very well establish SS?

Quote from: tickstock on May 18, 2013, 11:19

Quote from: SNP on May 18, 2013, 11:15

other than reading other peoples' opinions about Yuri, I've had very few of my own about him. I don't know him. but this move speaks volumes, about the industry, about Getty and about greed versus principle.

Yuri, this seems like kind of a "screw you rest of the industry, now I'm the king of the playground". to each his own I guess.

I think it's a business decision, he thinks he can make more money with Getty than on the sub sites.  Why does it have to be more complicated than that?  It would be pretty crazy for him to choose to make less money so he can say "screw you rest of the industry, now I'm the king of the playground".

And what's this talk about principle?  Is it more principled to license your work through 50 different agencies including Istock and Getty rather than just through Istock and Getty.

So, are you saying that contributors who license only through Getty and iStock are more principled than those who license through multiple sites?   If so, it sounds a little like an 'I'm better than you' philosophy....

Nope I said people who sell through 50 sites including Getty and Istock are not more principled than people who sell through just Getty and Istock.  You don't get more principled the more sites you license your images on, that's all.  Like I said it's a business decision and not about principle at all, whatever that's supposed to mean in this context.

Hi Guys.
We have found a good distribution partner (Getty Images) for the kind of content we produce. We will be removing all images from microstock doing the next few weeks. Microstock, especially subscription sites, are not suited for the kind of high production cost images we produce.
Best Yuri

Sadly we have much more speculation than fact..

Yuri is very specific - his distribution partner is Getty, not iStock; and there's no reference to any form of exclusivity.  The confounding factor is his portfolio on iStock.  Just a guess, but could it be that Getty is placing some of Yuri's images there with Yuri's permission, as long as Getty pays royalties based on Getty prices and rates?

Yuri has the advantage of knowing what happened to Sean and other Getty contributors, and I'm going to bet he took that into account in negotiating his contract - Yuri just doesn't seem to be a dunce.

It's hard to believe his production costs in South Africa are high in comparison with other locations.  Just go check the ZAR/Euro and ZAR/USD exchange rates (per www.oanda.com today, US$1.00 gets more than ZAR9.3, and EUR1.0 gets more than ZAR 11.9).  There are lots of very capable people there who are not fully employed, if employed at all; they are much more likely to be self-employed.  Importantly, I would expect them to be paid in ZAR, so even if Yuri has been generous, the cost is most likely not that high in international terms.  Is there any reliable and publicly available information on Yuri's actual costs, or the financial condition of his enterprise?

Regards

I can't imagine Yuri would forgo the earnings from other sites just for the convenience of only having one agent and 20%, so I can only presume he must have negotiated a special percentage rate higher than the 20% offered to other 'special exclusives'.

maybe he won't get royalties anymore but a fat check every month (beside the one before joining this special exclusivity that allows him to be all around)

money talks and again Yuri got us talking about him for FREE

I'm not sure that many of you have been to Cape Town? There are many more reasons why a stock photographer would want to move to Cape Town other than an exchange rate - which is a pretty bum way of measuring the cost of doing business all things considered.

it would be interesting to see if any other big players will follow yuri.

I think the key here will be that Yuri became a "Getty Exclusive" not an "Istock Exclusive". It'll be like a couple of the other distribution houses Getty made deals with that get to place content on IS as "exclusive" but get to continue selling through their original brand/channel. I'll bet People Images stays.

So, what are the implications? A windfall for Yuri, and congrats to him! Next, if it pulls high quality content off of subs sites and low price point sites, it is good for mid-stock, Stocksy, and higher priced collections at agencies. Probably good for micro contributors too easing the need to compete against his factory at the lower price points.

What else? It appears to shaft established exclusives at IS by watering down that exclusive label yet again. Establishes that anyone can be exclusive but some are more exclusive than others. And, seems to suggest that if you want a sweet deal like Yuri (or the other "Getty Exclusives" got), that IS exclusivity may be a shackle to be shed before you can make a deal with Getty. Few people probably have the clout, but some do. And if some banded together... for example, imagine 4 or 5 of the top ten contributors making a new "brand" to negotiate a similar type of deal with 40k-50k of top quality/selling files as leverage.