VecPHO looks like a Freepik offshoot. I guess they're trying to recruit a maximum of creatives to further expand their network.
Manuel Fernandez - https://www.freepik.com/blog/freepik-company-appoints-manuel-fernandez-as-coo/

It seems the latest plausible theory is that these people spam their images to the max after acceptance, wait for them to pick up speed and when they find a place in the top results they remove the spam to appear regular. Apparently many users do this. Look at these:
https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/mountain-waterfall-landscape-mountains-1780718075
https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/winter-mountain-snow-camp-scene-camping-1780718078

He's doing the classic compound keyword spamming which is supposed to be banned. Take his cat photo for example:
black cat,cat look,striped cat,tabby cat = 4 x cat in the algo
Or another photo of a forrest:
big forrest, flying over the forrest, forrest in winter, frozen forrest = again 4 x forrest in the search algo
It's just a matter of time he gets reported and those 37 pages of average stock will vanish along wtih his pay.

The problem is the same video brings 1,50$ on SS and 26� on Adobe. And it's not like SS sells 20 times more videos to compensate with volume at least. Also trying to squeeze every penny from your work is detrimental for all contributors in the long run and it shows you're missing the bigger picture. You're 1,50$ richer now but that same behaviour will lead to your income being cut in half or by 2/3 in 3,4,5 years

Lowest $ since february 2015, half of what I made last month and jan 2020 

Thank you for the replies

It is a pitty that Paypal charges so much fee
That are much $0,10 downloads on SS

I already thought that it was unavoidable to pay conversion fee

And what about the fee that charges Skrill and Payoneer (the other two SS payment methods)?

Don't bother, they're even worse than PP

Someone should push the concept even further - blur screenshots from 4K bluray rips of iconic movies and upload them as a collection.

It is really sad and frustrating to see corporations continuously taking actions to systemically harm under-represented communities while paying lip service with publicity stunts. I mean predictable and unavoidable but still sad.

In this example harming income of an extremely diverse group of contributors from all over the world with the setting up a free image collection which devalues their work to increase engagement for Adobe and their products. The effect being ultimately to drive income from them to the pockets of extremely well off and not at all diverse group of shareholders in wealthy countries. Simultaneously setting up a fund which ultimately does nothing to address the underlying issue or make any meaningful change is whitewashing plain and simple.

Same strategy as SS or more broadly why Citi Group or BP are constantly funding charities or museum exhibits. It�s just ad spend for the companies involved that will have no real impact on the lives of the vast majority of BAME, LGBT+ or disabled people but does wonders for their public image.

I am sure it it�s just a coincidence these two announcements have been made at the same time. If you want to have a real impact in the lives of under-represented communities as a group why not start by doing everything you can as a corporation to preserve the value of their work and level of their compensation (it�s rhetorical I know the answer).

Apologies for any redundancy caused by placing this in this thread, I can understand why it is in your interests to keep these two announcements separate, but the connection has to be pointed out.

Well said. The only way to counter this is to constantly denounce it and expose it, like you just did.

0.67 for June
0.72 All time (10+ years)
Jan, Feb, March, April, May were all above 0.8

..One of my points was that big producers who can step up in the game and produce that kind of high-level material usually don't have much choice, they might have 10+ people on board with high maintenance costs. If those companies are earning 20.000+ USD per agency per month from the most significant agencies, it will be hard just to shut off one of them even if commissions have cut half of one of them..

I've already read accounts of big operations closing because of the changes. I'm sure they won't pull their portfolios but as far as producing is concerned they are done.

They started paying Freepik royalties, they will get Freepik quality content and eventually Freepik buyers. Funny how from all the possible models this is the one they try to emulate

Quote from: thx9000 on June 01, 2020, 12:29

Quote from: gnirtS on June 01, 2020, 12:14

Looks that way - they cant even get the robbing contributors bit correct.  Everything is appearing as an SOD.

Greed and incompetence. That's a potent mix. If you aim to drive a business into the ground that is.

Thing is, THEY are laughing all the way to the bank. It�s only being driven into the ground for contributors. The noobs who are ok with $.10 an image are all lined up, ready to go. Tens of thousands of them.

Short term maybe. Long term they'll eventually share the fate of iStock. I don't know what kind of spin they put to this in their corporate meetings to convince themselves it is sustainable but there is no way they'll be able to keep old and attract new contributors producing relevant and quality content. After that it'll be a vicious circle ...down the drain. It's not the first nor the last time a leading company shoots itself in the foot

Just got a 0.10$ SOD too (L5/35%) . Maybe I should save those to buy that poor SOB CEO a beer. Cheers!