I couldn't disagree more.  I get bored reading about this.  I am livid about 6 cents and will do all I can to get away from pixmac.  Pay per download prices are way above subs levels and those sites are still doing great.  It is obvious that most buyers don't mind paying dollars instead of cents.

I don't see the free and cheap sites getting much decent content, they will be full of junk.  Perhaps people will use them but they are not going to take away much from the other sites.  Google like to make money and they are not going to buy all the micros and put prices down because we can remove our images.

Flemish,  I think it's only a matter of time before Google drops the bomb with 'Google Stock',  a searchable archive of 10,000,000 free stock images.  Paid for by ad revenue.

Did you ever try to search for images for clients on free sites? Flickr for instance. You'll have to wade through tons of crap to find anything decent and it's not even tagged well. If you find a gem after 30 mins, you can't even buy fast let alone get the assurance there is a model release. Stock agencies offer quality control and security. It's fast to search and buy. That's worth money too.

I'm not that much worried about Google stock, but an app that looked up the same quality image over stock sites and presented the best buy would really hurt to those that upload both to Alamy and Nanostock like Pixmac. Up till now, huge price differentiation over sites was possible due to ignorance.

I am livid about 6 cents and will do all I can to get away from pixmac.

You will have to wait a year and send them a registered snail mail for that. I reviewed the site and its terms when it started and I gently put it down. Their link density is generated by the typical E-European link circles. They smelt slightly fishy with their sweepstakes and later with their association with Heroturko. Everybody seemed to be blinded by those 100$. I hate to say "I told you so", but I told you so. 

Looked at the 123RF landing page? "Images as low as 0.19$".
Fotolia : images from 14 cents.
Dreamstime: high-resolution stock images can reach as low as $0.20 each.

They are all playing the price competition game.

Google already has a powerful image search, of course.  They could extend its tentacles into the micro/macro stock archives by signing agreements with those companies.  The agencies could still sign up contributors and review images.

Whether 'quality' could be quantified and identified by algorithms is an open question. Obviously past sales history is one factor, contributor history is another.  Images could be heuristically analyzed for contrast, color range, complexity, noise and a brute-foce metric for "quality" could emerge. For example, I'd suggest that image 'simplicity', in terms of the number of detectable objects and edges, is a powerful indicator of success for a stock image.  So is a harmonious relationshiop of colors, which could also be picked up by an algorithm

Google has people hard at work on all sorts of ways to 'monetize' the serach technologies they've developed.  

I'm just playing devil's advocate here. But I do think there's an inevitablity about 'free' stock images.  

I'm thinking back to Netscape Navigator. People were actually paying money for this this new application called a "browser" - remember that?. Then Microsoft stepped in and decided browsers should be free.  Then later Google decided that all applications - word processors, spreadsheets, image editors (Picassa), 3D CAD (AutoSketch) - should be free, paid for by ads.  Oh and news, too. That's why AP is now litigating against Google, trying to stop their news aggregator.

Google wants people's online lives to be lived entirely inside Google, with ads just a ubiquitous part of the landscape.  To do that they're buying or creating all the content people might want.

Guys,
sorry I was not replying to this. I'm checking the forum from time to time, so if anything like this needs to be solved here in the public, please let me know (email, icq, gtalk, skype, msn, facebook, twitter - I'm ready!).

To the issues I found:

1. One year lock-in

This is a painful thing, sure! I convinced the owners to make it "1 year" from "2 years" that have been there before. But be sure, I am working on improving that to even less or another way to make you guys comfortable. The other thing is, that somebody who wanted money just for uploading photos should know that we have to make the money to pay him/her.

2. Snail mail

Calm down. You don't have to send any letters to Prague. An email and some ID confirmation is fine. We're not stupid here and if any of you guys think that we're doing bad things, better than shout here, send me an email, ok? [email protected]

3. Subscription prices

I knew about this and so we removed the advertising from the homepage right away. And also moved the price from $0.06 to $0.10 so almost twice. It's a first step. Now we're considering about taking out subscription completely and finding another way how to satisfy customers in similar way. Also Extended License will be sold only for regular credits soon.

4. Lower commisions

Sorry, Ftolia contract limits. At least the commisions changed for newcomers only.

5. Download calcullation

If there is a problem with counting, please contact us! Michal Prynych is the guy you need. We're doing our best, we don't wanna hurt you. But when I see the forums, there's plenty of voices that never send a word to us directly...

6. Other improvements

I'm preparing an article about what we do for photographers (I just came from honeymoon on Sunday). Sure there is more to do for you, sure we can be "different". Eg. delete community section as Albumo. But we make it differently in other way. My intention is to make the site good for photographers as good for the buyers. Even some of you think we're just stupid bunch of loozers.

Check our blog in next few weeks. Certainly I'll post there also ideas from this thread.

Looked at the 123RF landing page? "Images as low as 0.19$".
Fotolia : images from 14 cents.
Dreamstime: high-resolution stock images can reach as low as $0.20 each.

They are all playing the price competition game.

sooo right  null.
every day tossing burgers is getting more and more attractive.

if i were the manager of a burger joint ..., no, let's make it a "sub-marine" joint, i would put up a sign, "why be a micro stock photographer?
we pay better wages than your subs...PLUS you get free lunch !"
 

Looked at the 123RF landing page? "Images as low as 0.19$".
Fotolia : images from 14 cents.
Dreamstime: high-resolution stock images can reach as low as $0.20 each.

They are all playing the price competition game.

Wouldn't it be nice if we do find a site with a different sales pitch?
Something like ---

OUR PRICE IS HIGHER BECAUSE OUR IMAGES ARE BETTER !

However, I won't hold my breath for this to happen.

okay, I read the whole thing.....

I never submitted to these clowns,  how'd my pix wind up there?  Gravitate from FT....??  I've got to start reading fine print everywhere now..
   thank the powers that I decided to take my FT 'folio down to 2 pix a long time ago...due to my credits being ripped off.  I think I'm just going to delete the 2 and cut my losses with FT.

Or am I wrong? =tom

They are a partner of fotolia and resell all of fotolia's image. For FT's images they sell you get a normal sale at FT and never see them (or other FT partners).

The very small amounts are for people who sign to sell direct with pixmac (as well as the FT offering) they did offer 50%, but now have since cut it to 30% and they have a credit / size based subs package that is also based on % commission. Before a small image on a years sub package was worth $0.06, now the min is $0.10 but that is on a monthly subs package so more likely to occur.

Anyway few posts ago I said 50% of $0.10 but remembered the commission drop in April so,

for new images thats 30% of $0.10 so still only $0.03 (as opposed to $0.02, so its a 50% improvement but still only a whole whopping $0.01 rise, wow!) and its 30% of $0.70 ($0.21) for 30mp extralarge (other sizes in between)

But basically subs buyers are not first time buyers from new markets etc. Most of the time these would mostly be bigger customers who have bought elsewhere. 

If a subs customer buys my small image and I get $0.03, this is only 12% of the minimum that I would earn anywhere else (minimum anyone else offers is $0.25) and its just under 8% of what I get for a SS sale (I get $0.38 at ss and I dont submit to anyone below $0.30 so 10% for me). 

This means I am at 833% worse off than if that customer bought it from any other site and 1266% worse off if you've pulled one of SS customers

Best case is that they buy superlarge (but is a credit based subs so there is incentive to only get the size they need) and then I am only getting 84% of what I get elsewhere and 55% of ss. 

I'm sure you're nice people but really why should I support your site and give myself an horrendously massive paycut by selling images to people who in msot cases you are going to try and poach from elsewhere?? (not to mention support the race to the bottom). 

4. Lower commisions

Sorry, Ftolia contract limits. At least the commisions changed for newcomers only.

For newcomers? this is what I got from support too, but the terms and conditions says for new images after april?? (it also says a sliding scale between 30-44% but with no explanation anywhere on the site as to how this works or what increments are involved (and I did ask), which also implies new images rather than new contributors )