in latin america, we call it the "curse of the entitlement generation".
it is difficult to convince someone who never understand the value of having to work a living.
no surprise as i am sure most microstock clients and agencies like ss, is,etc.. were weaned on "entitlement" .
except when they drink coffee, which is paid anyway but mom/dad credit card 

Quote from: stockastic on August 24, 2015, 09:38

What's been changed by microstock is the perceived value of the work.

Yes, exactly.  Unfortunately, once the price has been lowered then that becomes what something is worth and nobody will want to pay more.  That is the biggest problem with the subscription model - individual images no longer have value, their value is only as part of some larger package like phone minutes.

I like to cut my morning orange juice with diet soda as a way to reduce calories.  For years the price was officially around $1.99 for a 2-liter bottle of brand-name diet soda but there are always sales or discounts making them usually $1.25 or less.  The other day I went to the store and there were no discounts, but there is no way I was going to pay $1.99 a bottle when for me the real value is much less.  I looked at alternative brands and finally found one that is cheaper.  It still was more than I wanted so I only bought one bottle and will check for a lower price next time.  The price really makes no difference to me economically, I am just resistant to paying more now that my notion of the value has been reduced.  It is the same with microstock.  How you raise the price after that I don't know if somebody always sells the product cheaper.

both very right +10 each.
take cigarettes for example. when i was addicted to nico, trying to be like eric claption with my cigarette dangling from my mouth while playing blues guitar 
a carton of peter styv was like what??? something like $22 ... yes , a carton of luxury size.
that was when i quit smoking. it was too expensive i said.

last year or was it the year before, i asked a kid how much he paid for a packet of cheap smoke,
i almost died when he told me how much. i said, how much??? i mean for a packet, not a carton.
he said, "what century are you living in, dude???"

yes, once you drop the price, you can never recapture that. even the arabic man or the jewish tailorshop owner say the same thing, "you want cheap, we got no cheap here!!! go..go to the other side of town, you get cheap, very cheap!!!"  and they laugh , they don't cry because you complain they cost too much. they know, the real cost of their products.

same thing for haircuts. i see a wide margin of haircuts everywhere i go...
from $8 to $22. same haircut, no golden scissors for the $22 haircut,
but the lady tells you, "take it or leave it".

.. Your jeans and leather jacket may look worn and faded, but they have the names of celebrity designers prominently displayed, so other people know what they cost and that you're tuned in to trends.  That shapeless white XL t-shirt is printed with some statement about your values, or the logo of a cool place you've been to.  It's all communicating something.

I heard a talk by a linguist who tried to make the case that inflections and contextual nuances gave actual meaning to multiple uses of the word 'like' in a single sentence (although I didn't quite buy it). 

The 'cell phone photo' aesthetic aims to give you the feeling of not just being at, but actually participating in, the event and being so involved in your exciting life that you could barely hold the camera still. 

Yeah it all bores me too.  But it's a pendulum, and it will swing back some day.

Interesting. Once, we were all taking off our clothes f*cking around every bird and sm*oking dopes to show our status and how civilized we are by not going to Vietnam.
Now, we buy expensive clothes that are deliberately torn and faded, when in fact , we could get the same torn and faded clothes had we exchanged our suits with a ruggamuffin or that poor old sod who sleeps in the back alley after his only bottle has put him to think he is sleeping comfortably in a nice bed.

I remember too of the 90s, when recently-arrived refugee asked me why there are so many poor ppl walking around downtown and at the shopping center, who strangely are able to be buying expensive toys and eating junk food. "Why don't they use the money to buy new clothes", she asked .

She also wondered aloud why there are so many lovely gardens in her neighbourhood, yet no one ever comes out to enjoy sitting or playing in their gardens. (In her country, everyone wears fresh clothes and spends hours outside their garden, no matter how poor they are). She too was confused
and perharps wondered if she is going to be living in a strange new world .

I wonder how she is today , some 30 years later??? No doubt, her children born here are walking around in those tatty clothes using her credit card to buy status . Like the mother I overheard, just the other day, complaining that her children are too ashamed to be seen drinking coffee costing 50 cents at the greasy spoon. But,(quote) not too shameful to show how stupid they are preferring to pay $4.50  for a $tarf*cks status coffee.

This is the true definition of naive and being handicapped...deaf ...dumb or blind;
When I say retard, I do no longer refer to the normal ones who are born without limbs, can't speak, can't see, can't hear,etc...  I refer to the ones with implants of giant headphones, cell-phones,
who seem to be always more excited at singing out of tune in a bus , or constanly waiting for text messages, even when they are with a living breathing person who could be more fun .

 No wonder ET has decided not to invade Earth!!! They could be infected by this Earth social-disease ... and I don't mean syphillis

Hopefully we'll go back to the days when companies actually Hired Photographers to shoot for them.  digital came along, then Micro and everyone is a Photographer. Ya right. Digital made it to where everyone can enjoy Photography, It also killed traditional Stock work Done By a select few that made a living at it.

The minute companies discovered that we'll take 20 cents. we were done and I blame the original Microsites for going so Low especially Istock, then the rest. And I also Blame us for letting this happen. We went from a $400 average commission to 20 Cents in a week.

it won't happen , mein freund, these days instead of hiring a photographer , they pull out their mobile and say "we take our own pictures". even the newspapers send some dude with his notebook to record a concert,etc.  never mind about composition , etc. noise??? what noise??? the only noise you hear is microstock contributors grinding their teeth and coming on forum 

just as that song says video kill the radio star, ... disco kills live music...  digital cameras killed the working photographer... mobile kills whatever is left of pro photography.

time to move on...   i just read on yahoo or is it youtube, a guy paints himself white and stands still in downtown
makes over a thousand bucks a day. . then again, squeegie kids still makes more than a microstock photographer... and all they need is a squeegie from the dollar mart.

yes, and to the right of leaf's page here ...   86.5%
that has to be an all time low, right???

i wonder how many new stuff since say a year back is even getting 5 downloads cumulative.
ss is like a rental-home before the wrecking ball , first needing full tenancy to sell the building to some fool with money to burn, i say... what do you think

The only thing that will impress their remaining shareholders is numbers of images.  They don't give a thought to image quality or uniqueness.

+100 again. like those rental properties filling up their bldgs with full tenancy but none of those those left due to complaints of no repairs,etc.
the new buyer is clueless and think "waaaa, full tenancy." when they buy it, they find lots of unfinished repairs and ceilings caving in after they change ownership.

same thing here, as shareholders will be even happier to know monthly income has fallen alot... and still falling. they will not be the ones holding the bag, as these shareholders will be gone soon.

actually better still, a weekly show about a shady millionaire who uses his microstock agency to launder money. a handful of prior unknown "photographers" suddenly became top sellers
with their snapshots , , short film, etc..created with mobile phones .
while the rest of their 6 million a month uploads almost never see payout.

any suggestion for the main protagonistas???  i vote for johnny depp as he was amazing in
Blow. Naomi Watts would also be great choice as the top selling lady.

0 days don't bother me. what i bother is why for many months the large single sales between 30$ and 120$ suddenly disappear. sure the single sales still here but they are not 30$ to 120 $.
as another person here on leaf site said, it's ok for 0 days as long as the bottom line still get big enough at the end of the month payout.

but for many months now, the payout is bad compared to the many past years. and i can see on the right i am not the only one . 86% is bad for ss. time to tell the shareholders to stop fking around with ss.

Quote from: gbalex on August 09, 2015, 10:04

Well said VB inc. I completely agree, however I also think greed played a large part in the equation.

Of course it played a large part!
All people in all societies pursue their own interest, seeking what is good for them, their families and their communities.
You do the same, every time you make an economical decision in your life, when you want an agency to pay you higher commissions, when you look for a good deal when you buy a lens, or when you want a cheaper car, etc.

Except that, when others do it, you call it "greed"!

except that other than yourself, we do not always do it for the good of just our families.
-we do pay a little more at the farmer's market,
-we pay a little more for the mom and pop store so that there do not go bankrupt
having to compete against the chain stores
- we do choose to pay more than just go to the golden m
for our meals , instead going to our local ethnic shish kabob family owned quick food restos.

we do that so that our town is not just one of those US Cda satillite towns that is nothing but walmart and xxxmart and whatever and parking lots and loads of shopping carts
scattering all over our garden and baseball fields,etc...

we do choose to go with those little companies for long term growth
rather than just make those big corporations and shareholders rich quick.

yes, we do call it "greed" because we don't see it the same page like you.

Well said VB inc. I completely agree, however I also think greed played a large part in the equation.

Two of the key players Insight Venture Capitol put in place, have now moved on. They usually stay as long as it is lucrative for them to do so. As for the bottom line, they will need to offer stock incentives to the two new replacements. 

It will be interesting to see how things develop once the majority of IS exclusive defectors hit higher payout levels. They are trying to attract new contributors much more aggressively than in the past, however for most, it takes time to develop the skill necessary to be competitive and it takes time to build large portfolios.

I wonder how the market will respond when it becomes necessary to start paying higher royalties for the majority of their collection, because it will eat into profits.

that day when start paying higher royalties will never come at this attitude placating to grab money and f*** the corporation exists. venture capital is just that sort which is like those mining corporations which rape the land of resources, cause pointless pollution to make the land unlivable , fire the miners, pack up and leave the country with their big bucks and leave what is ghost towns all over the land.

no different with sharks shareholders who really don't give a rat's arse whether you or the corporation have a tomorrow at all. that's not why they are in the business. such shareholders have a history of bad karma, they would die a million deaths if they were to believe in karma , but they don't because they worship only money

I was more interested in how shutterstock would sell themselves to market investors re "state-of-the-art processing operation"

yes, we used to have FRED for everything state of the art in IT.
today ss has ATILLA 

I have 97 files on stocksy. Last month I earned around 220 dollars with 6 sales, including one extended license. Even without the extended license stocksy always outperforms all other agencies considering my tiny port and not very "typical" stock content. Can�t begin to imagine how much the people with thousands of files are making.

So yes, financially they are absolutely worth it. I think if someone wants to live fulltime from stock photography, then stocksy is probably by far one of the best options right now.

However, stocksy is not a generalist, like Masterfile, or Corbis or Getty. They are a very niche...

thx for the insight. like pixelbytes once said, i too did not show much interest in ...
stocksy ... because not sure what they are looking for or looks like my port is not their niche
offset.. because they initially told "ss contributors need not apply"
 
tetra image and stockfood ... hmm, first time i heard of this here. many thanks for the direction.

yes, i think we have to look at canva, stocksy, etc in a different way we look at generalist micro sites.
i am not sure what alamy is these days.

last thing,  i like to know what rating stocksy is to the right of leaf's page here.
is it not showing because they don't rate well???
so far, only you have said anything about earnings.