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Author Topic: 500px - Kelly Thompson strikes again  (Read 61471 times)

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« Reply #125 on: March 23, 2016, 15:27 »
+6
The new definition for entrepreneurship is offer the moon, suck everybody in until you can make millions off their back, then take away the moon and give them a turd.  >:(

Yes. The new capitalist startup tale is that you form a company based on some fancy "community" or "crowdsourcing" concept which requires the least possible own and real productive effort, honeytrap as many people in it as you can by "for free" or "high Royalty" offers, trap people in your concept, then sell the thing after a few years, get rich and retire on some real or virtual island.

What society has to learn is to stop fancying BS like this. Last week I got to know one of those guys and most people seem to think that it is "cool" to live off abusive corporate structures who are simply base upon the exploitation of the productive effort of others. I told him that I think he is an A***'#e. Obviously, I did not exactly make friends at that table that night. But I acted regarding my honest values and do not believe in verbal Pacifism neither :D . I think the root and solution lies in the community to exclude People like this and include and honor honesty and loyalty more. It is upon the individual to act by best conscience, not following what is the easiest or socially most accepted form.

Not that it will make one bit of difference, because they are laughing all the way to the bank, but I agree with your values. Entrepreneurship used to mean working 14-18 days, paying your employees before you ever take a paycheck, and taking your vendors to lunch for providing good service. In other words, working hard. Now it means hardly working. Even though I am not a millionaire, I at least have a conscience and can sleep at night.


« Reply #126 on: March 23, 2016, 15:31 »
+1


Last week I got to know one of those guys and most people seem to think that it is "cool" to live off abusive corporate structures who are simply base upon the exploitation of the productive effort of others.

funny, i heard that phrase before. ..
ah yes, now i remember,
it was from the australian movie "Plastic"...
they were computer geeks or internet geniuses or something,
but they ended up dying when the people they con turned out to be more powerful con-men
than themselves.

« Reply #127 on: March 23, 2016, 17:34 »
+5
FYI in case anyone wants to disable their 500px Marketplace "store" without removing pictures (perhaps hoping they'll see the error of their ways...), you can just make one selection in the Marketplace settings:

https://500px.com/settings/store/settings

logged in to your account that'll get you the choice to "Disable 500px Store. Disable sale of your photos for commercial licensing."

Rinderart

« Reply #128 on: March 23, 2016, 20:20 »
+15
All my 300+ images removed

Thanks 500px you made the decision easy.............

Ditto. deleted 150 of my best. communication there is horrible. I thought "Maybe" we have something here. Nope. another bait and switch Scam.
« Last Edit: March 23, 2016, 20:23 by Rinderart »

« Reply #129 on: March 24, 2016, 00:43 »
0
FYI in case anyone wants to disable their 500px Marketplace "store" without removing pictures (perhaps hoping they'll see the error of their ways...), you can just make one selection in the Marketplace settings:

https://500px.com/settings/store/settings

logged in to your account that'll get you the choice to "Disable 500px Store. Disable sale of your photos for commercial licensing."
I will use this since 1 April and write link to my other marketplace to "about you" section. (https://500px.com/settings).

« Reply #130 on: March 24, 2016, 02:19 »
+9
Deleted account, it felt good!

« Reply #131 on: March 24, 2016, 04:12 »
+1
Didn't remove my images but I disabled images from marketplace.

« Reply #132 on: March 24, 2016, 04:15 »
+22
Isn't it incredible that sites that have a USP decide to destroy themselves by going down the same path that has failed for other sites?  I just hope one day a few site owners notice that if they give us a fair deal, they get a huge boost.  Just look at Alamy.  Pond5 had the right formula as well and were doing great until they stumbled across the self destruct button.

500px could justify cutting non-exclusive commissions to 50% and I think they would still have a viable business but going to 30% will be a disaster.

« Reply #133 on: March 24, 2016, 05:31 »
+21
Even if they changed it now and went back up to 50% - who would believe them??

Either you believe in the principle of fair trade or you dont, there is no inbetween.

And why would anyone send them exclusive content now? As soon as they have enough, they will lower those royalties wth 10 days notice as well.

And then there is the lack of a professional watermark and people saying this is intentional to get a second income through copyright infringement at 500 dollars a use.

Who wants to offer their files in a huge image as a click or share bait? Nobody.

Plus complete lack of interaction and communication, not even on the 500px website. Nothing says, "we dont care" more than silence.

Fudio

« Reply #134 on: March 24, 2016, 05:53 »
+6
Well put. They said as much themselves in the communique when they referred to revisiting the pricing structure at a future date. Some bridges just need to be burned.

« Reply #135 on: March 24, 2016, 06:15 »
+13
Deleted account, it felt good!

And I !!!

You're right, I feel much better now  :)

Tror

« Reply #136 on: March 24, 2016, 09:22 »
+15
Isn't it incredible that sites that have a USP decide to destroy themselves by going down the same path that has failed for other sites?

Yeah. Unbelievable. Crooks Like KT seem to think that they can scam people off like with istock back in the days.

But istock was a whole different story. They had been one of the first Agencies and many people built their lifes on it and around it. In comparison, 500px is nothing. A newcomer nobody relies on. And times have changed. We learned. Many are so fed up with s*** like this that they leave within a second.

This story will be in the books as "How to ruin a promising Agency for no reason". But that should actually be Kelly Thompson CV headline.
« Last Edit: March 24, 2016, 11:24 by Tror »

« Reply #137 on: March 24, 2016, 09:25 »
+3
Strange, cant delete account, it always jump to : Sorry, no such page. After I hit delete confirmation.

Edit : ah it actually did delete the account, they just dont have a landing page for that :D

« Reply #138 on: March 24, 2016, 10:23 »
+6
Just take a look at this (from 2015) to understand what kind of people are running 500px now. Really no surprises here.
http://thenextweb.com/entrepreneur/2015/05/23/co-founder-ex-ceo-500px-trial-errors-lessons-learned/

I love this comment from Andy Yang: "Its not beneficial to rehash that time." Like - "I stabbed the guy who hired me in the back and robbed him of his company, but hey who wants to talk about that?"

« Reply #139 on: March 24, 2016, 10:30 »
+8
The best part is that they'll rationalize to themselves that many users did not leave, hence our decision was the right one.

What they don't realize is that many of the best closed their account and the rest will now think a lot before they upload. They moved from being the agency that everyone supported to the one that people now hate

« Reply #140 on: March 24, 2016, 10:42 »
+11
Itˋ s a common mistake by people who dont understand crowd sourcing, that losing people doesnt matter.

And then they are surprised if half the community leaves in a few weeks or months.

" just a few people whining on a forum of losers" is what they tell investors...but nothing matters more than your reputation.

So many people think being part of the swarm means we are stupid, while it is exactly the opposite. Without input from everyone, it would take a lot longer to see what is really going and how much attention an agency deserves.


Tror

« Reply #141 on: March 24, 2016, 11:26 »
+3
Itˋ s a common mistake by people who dont understand crowd sourcing, that losing people doesnt matter.


I fully agree. Many community/crowd sourced sites which had been powerful in the past disappeared or are losing ground right now (e.g. Flickr).

« Reply #142 on: March 24, 2016, 11:36 »
+4
What they don't realize is that many of the best closed their account and the rest will now think a lot before they upload. They moved from being the agency that everyone supported to the one that people now hate

Indeed - while they can measure the people and images they lose what they can never know is how many would have signed up and uploaded, but won't now. Count me amongst those. I spent a good amount of time poring over the site last week and had decided join. Now I won't. I don't trust them anymore (whatever changes to the terms, if any, they might make).

« Reply #143 on: March 24, 2016, 11:43 »
+3
Just take a look at this (from 2015) to understand what kind of people are running 500px now. Really no surprises here.
http://thenextweb.com/entrepreneur/2015/05/23/co-founder-ex-ceo-500px-trial-errors-lessons-learned/

I love this comment from Andy Yang: "Its not beneficial to rehash that time." Like - "I stabbed the guy who hired me in the back and robbed him of his company, but hey who wants to talk about that?"


Thanks, that was interesting.  I actually didn't know about all the conflict and turnover.  It seems to me  that nothing salvageable was left, and I wonder why new investment came in.  Sounds like they should have just shuttered it.

If someone wanted to pick up the pieces and head in a new direction, they should have made that clear in the email to contributors.  Instead, it was just - starting now, you will get a lot less, take it or leave it.  Nothing about marketing plans or future possibilities, no apologies, no candor, no hope.    After reading that, who's going to spend the time uploading hundreds of photos? 

« Reply #144 on: March 24, 2016, 11:49 »
+3
Nice to hear that from agency that started as a social photo pub service (and tried to monetize from uploader subscription plans called "plus" and "awesome"). Zero sales stock with almost transparent watermark and huge iMac-retina-sized previews? Yeah, sure, sign me in!

« Reply #145 on: March 24, 2016, 11:50 »
+1
Itˋ s a common mistake by people who dont understand crowd sourcing, that losing people doesnt matter.

And then they are surprised if half the community leaves in a few weeks or months.

" just a few people whining on a forum of losers" is what they tell investors...but nothing matters more than your reputation.


So many people think being part of the swarm means we are stupid, while it is exactly the opposite. Without input from everyone, it would take a lot longer to see what is really going and how much attention an agency deserves.

it all depends on which side of the board you belong.
this age is all about "temporary"-ness, unlike the old age mentality that stability , longevity , ... is the key. much like the modular structure in your office. you , the people, are no different to the CEOs.
you make money for us, you stay... tomorrow, we remove your name from the door, and remove everything connected to you... and we escort you to the exit with only a box of your personal effects.

everything in business today is just that. telemarketing, publishing,etc...  shutterstock today, istock yesterday ,etc..   the common good is not what matters to the investors (not even the whole community of investors, ... just the controlling shareholders).
their main interest is to make money ..quickly, and pull out to go elsewhere to do another dirty work...
that is the modern era of the old school mining industry.
the only thing they mine these days is ... people.
the ghost towns they leave behind with pointless pollution are the same...
 people, and their homes
.

consider how many business eg telemarketing...  subsidized by your govt, are now empty head offices in your city???  same thing.

« Reply #146 on: March 24, 2016, 13:03 »
+20
This is the first time I am sorry that I don't have my portfolio uploaded there. I would be so excited to delete it right now to show them what I think. It would be like 30k images - what is not that much but still, a good number.

I see this as a good opportunity for photographers to stand up for themselfs. It is hard to quit from a significant agency when they make such a move. But 500px is NOT a significant agency and nobody will lose too much by leaving them. Except them. This is the right moment to protest! Unfortunately I can not delete my portfolio now, but I am sure I'll never upload anything ever.

stockVid

« Reply #147 on: March 24, 2016, 13:24 »
+22
Deleted my account.

It was not much but it has gone.

« Reply #148 on: March 24, 2016, 14:36 »
+21
Deleted all my images.
Good bye Kelly!  >:(

« Reply #149 on: March 24, 2016, 18:00 »
+5
Just take a look at this (from 2015) to understand what kind of people are running 500px now. Really no surprises here.
http://thenextweb.com/entrepreneur/2015/05/23/co-founder-ex-ceo-500px-trial-errors-lessons-learned/

I love this comment from Andy Yang: "Its not beneficial to rehash that time." Like - "I stabbed the guy who hired me in the back and robbed him of his company, but hey who wants to talk about that?"


Thanks, that was interesting.  I actually didn't know about all the conflict and turnover.  It seems to me  that nothing salvageable was left, and I wonder why new investment came in.  Sounds like they should have just shuttered it.

If someone wanted to pick up the pieces and head in a new direction, they should have made that clear in the email to contributors.  Instead, it was just - starting now, you will get a lot less, take it or leave it.  Nothing about marketing plans or future possibilities, no apologies, no candor, no hope.    After reading that, who's going to spend the time uploading hundreds of photos?


New investment came in from China. Visual China Group. https://news.ontario.ca/opo/en/2016/03/tech-startup-500px-creating-high-value-jobs-in-ontario.html  ... I am deleting my stuff at the end of the month.


 

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