My SS wait times are as usual - around 5-6 days.

That is absolutely awesome news.

To be honest I made some calculations of my own - let's say a "good" contributor has what - 1000 images @iS at least ( right ? ) and a top one has over 10K. However the top ones ( over 10K ) are like ... 100 or 200 ( correct me if I'm wrong ). I mean Arcurs has like ... 40-50K images so let's assume that the top contributors have in average about 15K images. So 200 x 15K = 3 mil images. But let's assume that half of those ( and I think could be more ) - are not watching this forum ( or others ). I have friends that did not even hear about the iStock/Google deal and they are contributors for years.  So the word went out to the contributors of 1.5 mil image holders. Out of those 1.5 images - let's assume that 1 mil ( and that is just being optimist ) was taken off the site. So we have 1 mil images taken down ( although I am pretty much afraid that's way too optimistic ). Let's say the others have also pulled off another million images - we have 2 mil. Although I am afraid not even 1 mil images have been taken off for real ...Not to mention most contributors HAVE NOT closed their account or deleted their photos. Many of them considered quitting exclusivity as a way to "punish" iS/getty so their folio is still up there, just that they made it available in other places also. I perfectly understand and salute the initiative, but most of the people are thinking about themselves pretty good before they pull the trigger on a money bringing alternative such as iStock.

Now on the buyer's perspective. They log in - look for a specific image - even if the top players have left - it's very likely that HE WILL FIND the suitable image he was looking for from the remaining users. So the sale is still made, money doesn't stop coming in. That is where the big problem is. Yes of course, iStock took a pretty nasty hit. Regarding quality of contributors, I think mostly it all comes down to QUANTITY rather then QUALITY in itself. Considering the iStock acceptance policy in the past years, it's safe to assume that if an image IS UP THERE - it's very likely that is of a GREAT QUALITY technically. It's maybe something about my images but I get an acceptance ratio on iS which is less than 50% of what I get from SS ( which is the second most pretentious agency in my book ). I get pretty much everything accepted on DT and FT. So from a buyer's perspective, it doesn't really matter WHO uploaded the photo, it's very likely the one he will get from iS - is of a GREAT QUALITY. So all in all, what does a TOP Contributor bring to the table and a bunch of other smaller ones don't already have there?

In my opinion, as I said before - the biggest impact on iStock business since the Google deal was in the buyer's section. I suppose that many, after reading about the hype created, decided not to purchase from iStock on a general principle, thinking that IT'S THE RIGHT THING TO DO considering they are Jerks to their contributors. Others that have read about it, simply got the idea NOW that there could be other great alternatives so rushed into the competition. iStock was pretty clear about how they don't really care much about contributors considering their policy of closing TOP accounts in left and right.

So all in all - it was a success, probably not just because a lot of users simply jumped boat ( and I have my suspicion that there were not that many as we all like to believe ) but rather of what happens to a lot of buyers as a result of all the hype around the web. And that's where it really hurts. Probably this whole FIASCO on the forums, blogs and everything created a much bigger mess than they anticipated.

It's great to see WE ACTUALLY HAVE A SAY in things. Considering this is probably the biggest THING in microstock recent history ( or entire history ) it's up to us to really make something about that COUNTS, because if this doesn't make it happen, what will ??

So do we have a clear image about how many users/images have been taken off iS since 2nd Feb? At least the big players ...
I am pretty curious on the whole thing. Seems that iS/Google are still not doing ANYTHING...