Quote from: Zalee on February 17, 2017, 17:04

Have any of you rejects received payout yet? I understand they will pay us what they owe us. It's not much for me but I still want it.

I assume they will wait till they get round to removing our unworthy efforts mine were still hanging around spoiling the look of their brilliant collection.

Quote from: Pauws99 on February 17, 2017, 17:07

Quote from: Zalee on February 17, 2017, 17:04

Have any of you rejects received payout yet? I understand they will pay us what they owe us. It's not much for me but I still want it.

I assume they will wait till they get round to removing our unworthy efforts mine were still hanging around spoiling the look of their brilliant collection.

Thanks Pauws. I assumed they would have deleted them straight away, but you're right, mine are also still there. I would have thought it would be very easy to disable and delete our accounts but apparently not...

I'll bite.

Photography is one of the easiest hobbies to get into right now. Everyone and their grandma has a camera with a phone. There are 600 million Instagram users and many of them consider themselves photographers. The stock photography market is one of the most saturated markets in existence and the value of photos are dropping by the day. There is nothing anyone can do about it. Everyone already knows the laws of supply of demand, so it speaks for itself.

So what is the solution? There is no one solution that fits all. There are a number of solutions and whether it works or not depends on the talent and determination of the contributor. So what are possible solutions?

1. Diversity. Photos, vectors and videos. A pure photography portfolio is going the see faster continued decline than a diverse one.

2. Think commercially. Original ideas doesn't mean anything unless it's something the buyers need. I've seen some of my original ideas getting outperformed by non-original ideas by 100-1.

3. Stop going after niches. Pebble watch tried to fill a niche and now it's dead, got destroyed by Apple and Android watches. Niches always get filled in by the big guys sooner or later.

4. Learn some SEO and keywordings. With 100 million images on SS, top-notch keywording is super important if you want your work to be found. An image with good keywording is more resistant to search engine changes. Native English speakers have an advantage over foreign contributors and I rarely see them take advantage of it.

5. Learn to compete with the best of them. Contributors are not entitled to get sales because they uploading some images, just like how college students are not entitled to a job just because they have a degree. Buyers only need a few images and if what you're offering is not up there with best of them, then the buyer will pass your image over. That's just reality.

6. Learn a new trade. Microstock was my 2nd passive income trade, right after developing apps. The App market has gone to **** and Microstock is heaven compared to that madness. Less work and much higher returns. I'm now working on my 3rd passive income stream and it's starting to gain traction.

7. Accept that the market is never going backwards. No nuclear bomb will be going off destroying everything and rebirthing the market. Even if does happen, all the contributors will fill it back up in a matter of weeks. The market will continue to saturate, just like every other industry in existence. This makes point #5 super important.

So go ahead, bltch, moan and complain. It won't solve problems. Meanwhile, some optimistic upstart somewhere is determined to create and upload high valued content and start eating other people's lunches.

Quote

I'll bite.

Photography is one of the easiest hobbies to get into right now. Everyone and their grandma has a camera with a phone. There are 600 million Instagram users and many of them consider themselves photographers. The stock photography market is one of the most saturated markets in existence and the value of photos are dropping by the day. There is nothing anyone can do about it. Everyone already knows the laws of supply of demand, so it speaks for itself.

So what is the solution? There is no one solution that fits all. There are a number of solutions and whether it works or not depends on the talent and determination of the contributor. So what are possible solutions?

1. Diversity. Photos, vectors and videos. A pure photography portfolio is going the see faster continued decline than a diverse one.

2. Think commercially. Original ideas doesn't mean anything unless it's something the buyers need. I've seen some of my original ideas getting outperformed by non-original ideas by 100-1.

3. Stop going after niches. Pebble watch tried to fill a niche and now it's dead, got destroyed by Apple and Android watches. Niches always get filled in by the big guys sooner or later.

4. Learn some SEO and keywordings. With 100 million images on SS, top-notch keywording is super important if you want your work to be found. An image with good keywording is more resistant to search engine changes. Native English speakers have an advantage over foreign contributors and I rarely see them take advantage of it.

5. Learn to compete with the best of them. Contributors are not entitled to get sales because they uploading some images, just like how college students are not entitled to a job just because they have a degree. Buyers only need a few images and if what you're offering is not up there with best of them, then the buyer will pass your image over. That's just reality.

6. Learn a new trade. Microstock was my 2nd passive income trade, right after developing apps. The App market has gone to **** and Microstock is heaven compared to that madness. Less work and much higher returns. I'm now working on my 3rd passive income stream and it's starting to gain traction.

7. Accept that the market is never going backwards. No nuclear bomb will be going off destroying everything and rebirthing the market. Even if does happen, all the contributors will fill it back up in a matter of weeks. The market will continue to saturate, just like every other industry in existence. This makes point #5 super important.

So go ahead, bltch, moan and complain. It won't solve problems. Meanwhile, some optimistic upstart somewhere is determined to create and upload high valued content and start eating other people's lunches.

I like the list and can agree with pretty much everything but point 3 really bothers me.

Granted some niches are easily to replicate, but i think overall it's better to be a specialist in a few areas of photography than a generalist in many. In my opinion, more than niche it's about identifying trends that will be popular in the near future.

People have to be more optimist. This forum look like a complain forum, people have to be more possitive. We have to concentrate in find solutions and do things better.

Quote from: Pauws99 on February 19, 2017, 16:48

Quote from: PixelBytes on February 19, 2017, 14:57

Quote from: alexandersr on February 17, 2017, 13:29

People have to be more optimist. This forum look like a complain forum, people have to be more possitive. We have to concentrate in find solutions and do things better.

Sorry, but why do you get to decide how "people have to" feel?

  I was more positive when there was a correlation between my efforts and my rewards.  To be optimistic when there is absolutely no empirical evidence for optimism is delisional.

In the end though you have to do something either carry on and make the best of it or do something that makes you happy. If you are convinced its that bad time to move on for your sanity.

Eventually I expect that will happen.  But as I said earlier in the thread, in spite of all the income loss, I managed to build a large, high quality enough portfolio to keep bringing in some royalties for another few years.  At least as much as I would make in a real world job, with my skill set. 

So no, I'm not going to drag my 50+ year old, sciatica plagued body out to learn a new trade that won't pay what I'm making now.  I'm gonna wring every drop of passive income I can out of micro, and I'm gonna be mad every time some greedy agency takes another chunk of my retirement income away to line their pockets.

If you can't understand the logic in that, you are free to disagree, but you're not gonna shut me up.  I have as much right to complain about unfair practices as anyone else.  And in case you didn't notice,  the people who are upset about falling incomes seem to outnumber the blissful ones by a pretty high margin.  It did NOT used to be that way. When there was nothing to complain about,  nobody had to run around telling people to stop complaining.

PS.  My sanity is in good shape.  Insanity would be to see your livelihood going down the toilet and NOT   have a problem with that!

Quote from: PixelBytes on February 20, 2017, 00:00

Eventually I expect that will happen.  But as I said earlier in the thread, in spite of all the income loss, I managed to build a large, high quality enough portfolio to keep bringing in some royalties for another few years.  At least as much as I would make in a real world job, with my skill set. 

So no, I'm not going to drag my 50+ year old, sciatica plagued body out to learn a new trade that won't pay what I'm making now.  I'm gonna wring every drop of passive income I can out of micro, and I'm gonna be mad every time some greedy agency takes another chunk of my retirement income away to line their pockets.

If you can't understand the logic in that, you are free to disagree, but you're not gonna shut me up.  I have as much right to complain about unfair practices as anyone else.  And in case you didn't notice,  the people who are upset about falling incomes seem to outnumber the blissful ones by a pretty high margin.  It did NOT used to be that way. When there was nothing to complain about,  nobody had to run around telling people to stop complaining.

PS.  My sanity is in good shape.  Insanity would be to see your livlihood going down the toilet and NOT   have a problem with that!

Obviously, this is partially directed at me. If you look at my points, and read it in context, you'll see that I didn't ask you learn a new trade. I was suggesting learning other ways to generate passive income. If you think veterans have it hard, the newbies have it even harder. They have compete against 100 million images, whereas the veterans have many images that are well-established in the search results. You can call me inexperienced all you like, but I didn't break into SS's top tier and FT's weekly top 100 in less than 2 years if I didn't know what I was doing. I had to learn things faster than the veterans and I had to work harder.

You already know how to generate passive income with Microstock, so that experience can translate to a number of other fields that can serve as complimentary income. That's all I suggest. You don't need years, just months. I learned to make apps in 2 months with no programming experience. I went into microstock with no experience other than as a buyer of stock images. I know some people here are younger, and while you have some valid excuses, some don't. They waste plenty of time talking about Trump when they could put that time to better use.

I'm no spring chicken myself. In Silicon Valley, I'm considered over the hill, and yet I force myself to learn new things constantly otherwise I'll get left behind. My optimistic attitude isn't some delusion, it's a necessity. Believe me when I tell you this, microstockers have it much easier than app developers. They spend 2 months on something only to give it away for FREE to serve ads, and many people don't download random free apps anymore. Other than Getty, whom I've always said was predatory company, the other agencies treat people relatively fairly. Maybe things aren't what they were 10 years ago, but nothing ever is. The market is saturated and there are over 150,000 contributors. That's the world we live in.

Quote from: PixelBytes on February 20, 2017, 00:00

Eventually I expect that will happen.  But as I said earlier in the thread, in spite of all the income loss, I managed to build a large, high quality enough portfolio to keep bringing in some royalties for another few years.  At least as much as I would make in a real world job, with my skill set. 

So no, I'm not going to drag my 50+ year old, sciatica plagued body out to learn a new trade that won't pay what I'm making now.  I'm gonna wring every drop of passive income I can out of micro, and I'm gonna be mad every time some greedy agency takes another chunk of my retirement income away to line their pockets.

If you can't understand the logic in that, you are free to disagree, but you're not gonna shut me up.  I have as much right to complain about unfair practices as anyone else.  And in case you didn't notice,  the people who are upset about falling incomes seem to outnumber the blissful ones by a pretty high margin.  It did NOT used to be that way. When there was nothing to complain about,  nobody had to run around telling people to stop complaining.

PS.  My sanity is in good shape.  Insanity would be to see your livlihood going down the toilet and NOT   have a problem with that!

Obviously, this is partially directed at me. If you look at my points, and read it in context, you'll see that I didn't ask you learn a new trade. I was suggesting learning other ways to generate passive income. If you think veterans have it hard, the newbies have it even harder. They have compete against 100 million images, whereas the veterans have many images that are well-established in the search results. You can call me inexperienced all you like, but I didn't break into SS's top tier and FT's weekly top 100 in less than 2 years if I didn't know what I was doing. I had to learn things faster than the veterans and I had to work harder.

You already know how to generate passive income with Microstock, so that experience can translate to a number of other fields that can serve as complimentary income. That's all I suggest. You don't need years, just months. I learned to make apps in 2 months with no programming experience. I went into microstock with no experience other than as a buyer of stock images. I know some people here are younger, and while you have some valid excuses, some don't. They waste plenty of time talking about Trump when they could put that time to better use.

I'm no spring chicken myself. In Silicon Valley, I'm considered over the hill, and yet I force myself to learn new things constantly otherwise I'll get left behind. My optimistic attitude isn't some delusion, it's a necessity. Believe me when I tell you this, microstockers have it much easier than app developers. They spend 2 months on something only to give it away for FREE to serve ads, and many people don't download random free apps anymore. Other than Getty, whom I've always said was predatory company, the other agencies treat people relatively fairly. Maybe things aren't what they were 10 years ago, but nothing ever is. The market is saturated and there are over 150,000 contributors. That's the world we live in.