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Messages - everest
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151
« on: November 19, 2021, 02:16 »
Agree on the editorial front. In fact the only reason I am still image exclusive with Getty is that Adobe does not offer the editorial option and as I am not interested one iota in SS I stay with the Getty/Family because I have a lot of editorial content.
152
« on: November 18, 2021, 02:52 »
I disabled and deleted my port at SS more than a year ago. I don't contribute videos to Istock, although I am still image exclusive with them as I earn a few thousand dollars every month with them. Since I left SS my video sales at Adobe and Pond5 have doubled. So fine with me. I rather bet on raising agencies that are more friendly to contributors than sinking ships, but every contributor should know exactly how to treat their time.
153
« on: October 30, 2021, 15:50 »
There are a few others. Adobe premium, Offset, Pond5 setting your prices (basically for video),FilmSupply, plainpicture,... Everest, 'As suggested I think it is much wiser move to medium or macro stock'
I am only aware of Stocksy, Arcangel and Trevillion which I assume are 'macro' stock.
Do you know of any others, and which ones are 'medium' stock?
Thanks.
154
« on: October 30, 2021, 13:16 »
Spot on explanation on what micro is all about. Nowadays only terrain for amateur photographers that really don't care too much if they make 3000$ or 500$ a year but once you factor in time, props or gas or equipment the actually loose money but they like the micro game. For pros most have already gone to greener pastures but there are still some that keep going because of huge ports or because the live in a place where live is a bargain. In 2012 I was making 3$/month/photo at Istock exclusive. Nowadays 10 times less. I rarely upload now unless when I shoot video aerials then I take some photos and from time to time I upload those. But if I take rpi it is really not worth my time anymore. You have to be a very efficient machine and very careful with your expenses if you still want to play the micro card. As suggested I think it is much wiser move to medium or macro stock. The days where you could have many thousands of downloads for a top file or hundreds of licenses for a "regular ones" are over. Micro is surely not dead as more creative files are downloaded as ever but there are so many players from free to amateurs that are happy with a few hundred dollars a month or less that starting today would be silly as there are so many more routes in photography that give you better revenue streams, similar as when the micro game started. On the other hand, the people who started before us were used to easy street. Back in the beginning when a good stock pic went to the top of the search - it stayed there (forever) depending solely on how many dls it had.
No it wasn't. It startet going downwards early. Beginning 2008 at the 3 big agencies RPI was good. A few years latter going exclusive with istock my RPI was even getting better. But actually it was going downwards from the beginning. It was easy to see at a simple excel sheet. Just compare how older monthly uploads performs against newer uploads in the first months and years after upload. The newer uploads mostly didn't get the sale volume like older uploads and did not sell that long. Mostly there is even a continuing trend over the years. At 2020 my RPI (year) at Adobe Stock was $0,7. At 2008 at FT my RPI (year) was about $2. This trend was clear since about 2010. My RPI (year) at istock exclusivity was about $9 at 2012. I guess it would be around $3 nowadays. Nowadays the situation is like this - average images at microstock still sell at lower RPI compared to 10 years ago. Averages images at istock exclusive probably don't sell well. Premium images at istock exclusive probably will sell well. If you want to keep your income level. Produce more images at micro, or produce better images for mid stock, macro. Producing at the same level your income will be lower than now in a few years. Still the same game as it was the last 10 years. If you are just starting, your income will grow for about 3 years. Now matter how good or bad your are. After the first 3 years it depends on your 3 years upload volume and quality. Just keeping the level means lower income year after year.
155
« on: October 28, 2021, 05:46 »
Thank you for your very detailed report. SS growth is slowing down. it is happening quicker than I thought. Next quarters will be interesting. Many contributors have exited the place and their content is selling at competitors. I thought they would start the decline in 3 to 4 years. seeing this numbers it might be less than a year that they will fall from leadership . At that time Mr Oringer might have sold all of his shares. He made a great move for himself , those that stayed at SS made a bad one with dwindling sales that could get them much more on other sites.
156
« on: October 11, 2021, 23:32 »
Maybe I got myself explained wrong. It is not that they are pumping it artificially but they made a quick money grab the same as Getty did with Istock some years ago. At that time Getty grabbed clients money multiplying prices for customers and so many disappeared. Shutterstock went the opposite route. They have put the burden on contributors and those are disappearing fast (just look at what gets uploaded nowadays at SS). With such moves you make investors happy in the short term because your benefit increases dramatically but down the road things don't look so rosy anymore. Lets talk about SS stock in 2 years . You will see how drastically different their stock market graph and corporate benefits will be. Contributors and after clients will be where the good content is. And it is no longer at SS. They have just pumped up the stock killing the future of the company.....
highly unlikely SS is pumping their own stock - $100/share stocks don't get pumped since the buy to raise it by 10% over millions of shares is enormous
compared to pumping a penny stock to $1 or $2 -- an increase of over 100x for much less invested
157
« on: October 11, 2021, 15:15 »
They have just pumped up the stock killing the future of the company. Oringer will be long gone. Istock did something similar with H&F debacle and have never recovered since. I would bet that in a few years it will be under not only Adobe but also Istock/Getty in third position in photography and in video I would guess that in 4th after Adobe Getty P5. Even small players now like Artgrid might leave them behind. So yes, I see a bleak future for Shutterstock in the not so far future. Their stock growth has only reflected their contributor commission slash, but many gave them the kiss of death and are now only supplying to Adobe, P5 and other niche players. You know what happens when you cannot offer top fresh content anymore and only millions of millions of subpar assets compared to the competition...... The reality in my opinion is Shutterstock will slowly die, a great shame really.
You are right about one thing: to call it an opinion.
Because today's facts are simply showing that SS is doing more than fine. They are not only not "slowly dying", but rather steadily growing . See the attachment.
But if you meant it in a philosophical way, then yes, you are right 100%: all of us are slowly dying since the day we were born. 
158
« on: October 03, 2021, 13:55 »
It depends on the customer and of course what he is looking for. If you need to download a clock timelapse rest assured that no client is to look anywhere else if he/she has a subscription at Getty SS Envato Elements p5 or Artgrid, he will surely find plenty of alternatives. But things are quite different if they search for workers in a nuclear plant, diving in a pool or drone shots of rock climbers. He will pay who ever has the video he likes best for the ProJet . It doesn't matter if he is subscribed with any other library. Myself I was preparing not so long ago my first short film. I needed Latin chants. I was subscribed to 2 audio libraries.: soundstripe and audiio.com. I didn't like or find anything in them so I bought individual music files at Pond5. So unless you do ultra generic stuff in video people will hunt for your files if what you have is different of what other copycat and redo a 1000 times. Remember that about hose 22 million files at SS most of it is content repeated to death : splashes, clocks, skies, etc. There is a reason that agencies like Artgrid for example are growing even if they arrived very late to the party. The same can be said of agencies like Stocksy or Arcangel in the photo department. They have nothing to fear from SS and the likes. They have different content and SS will not replicate it because 1- It is too expensive to do for the paltry returns (you just need higher payments to be viable). 2- That huge number of files just demonstrates that 99% is of very low quality and searching is a frustrating experience for many clients where time is money. Again I am almost directing my advice to pros although we are a vanishing breed in stock. For amateurs that produce very simple stuff what you say holds true and a model smiling to a camera with a mask, the fake Covid vaccines,.... it really doesn't matter that content is everywhere. Amateurs what they have to compete is the growing free libraries that slowly have this same simple content and give it away for free. This is a thought process I can't follow.
Most sales nowadays happen with subscription plans, so why would a customer who has a subscription with one agency even go searching for a video on another agency? I can understand maybe browsing around on sites with free videos or photos first and I can also understand searching somewhere else if you really need a very very specific video of something and can't find it or anything similar to it anywhere else. But if you have to buy the video from another agency where you don't have a subscription, it will cost you an extraordinary higher amount, while on the agency where you have the subscription it would cause no additional costs at all. And with 22 million videos available on Shutterstock, what are the chances that, even if you can't find one specific video there, you will not at least find some suitable substitute for it?
159
« on: October 02, 2021, 02:33 »
1- Many large corporations have subscriptions and deals with ALL the major stock sites. They use as they need. They scout on the 4 big ones (in video) and buy what they need: usually they don't compromise on quality because of 20 or 100$. For the smaller clients they shop around and they will find very easy the file they are looking for if it has a cheaper price in another agency. They do care about 20 or 100$. 2- I have never ever had a video sale for les tha 20$ net on Adobe. I had plenty and I mean plenty of video sales below 1$ net at SS. I think in video Istock/Getty are exactly the same. At Pond5 it is very rare sales under 10$ net unles you price your files in the lowest 50$ UHD 25$ HD price range. But I get that some might still believe in the "you will make it up in volume" approach that I think nowadays is not longer true on any micro site. 9 years ago I had files at Istock with over 5000 downloads (those precious blue flames" Those days are long over and many with over 1000 and 500 sales. And that meant thousands of dollars in revenue with that approach. In video you rarely reach over 50 sales for video files so at those low numbers start crunching because maybe you are operating at al loss. Yes i get that those of you that do renders use your time and from time to time change computers ...the rest we do the same, pay props, models , travel expenses etc. So for a few dollars video I would say it is a big waste of time. Yeah but if they have a subscription at SS then it's highly unlikely they're going to download something from AS instead, or anywhere else... they'll just go with the best they can find at SS as they won't want to shell out any extra. And if they don't have a subscription at SS then that increases the chances that they might buy elsewhere, but what are the odds they can't find anything suitable on the whole of SS, but they can find it in your portfolio elsewhere? And if they don't have a subscription at SS then they're paying $20+ for HD. Not sure where you're getting the 'a few dollars at most' from.
160
« on: October 01, 2021, 01:14 »
I think it is you that got the logic wrong. Every time I sale a video file at Adobe *minimum of 24 ,the ranking of that video goes higher at Adobe. If the seller would purchase it on a sub at SS that file at Adobe would sink as if you don't sell it goes down as in every agency. Now you would say that it would go up at SS. Yes right but what would you prefer a video file that goes up in a place that you get 25$ or a video file that goes up in a site where you get paid a few dollar at most. Easy choice. And as I said previously. customers go for the file they need for the project and not the agency they are in, specially on video where there are many time not so many alternatives as it is not so saturated. They look around in the 4 sites that have decent video content and pick the best one. Now if that same content is everywhere they are not stup.d and pick the cheapest choice. .... Every dime sale made at SS not only kills a good sale at P5 or Adobe but also kills the ranking of that files at those better paying agencies...
false logic -- 'every' sale of your file on SS would take away a sale from YOU at another site?
?? and why/how does an SS ranking affect ranking at other agencies??
Some still think that buyers don't shop around. that is completely false, they do, and if they find what they want on another site cheaper the bite the hook. Specially freelancers and smaller companies. ...
once again, how do you know that ? some may do so, but someone with a subscription wouldnt want to spend time looking somewhere else where they'd have to pay the single DL price. more likely, if your remove files, they'll choose one of many thousands of other images available that fit their needs - they'd never know you have a better image on another site.
161
« on: September 30, 2021, 14:20 »
Yes everybody has to pick their battles. I am very glad that I left SS and Istock behind and my videos are now selling for good amounts. Also they are ranking every time better so that might one of the reasons of the increase. Every dime sale made at SS not only kills a good sale at P5 or Adobe but also kills the ranking of that files at those better paying agencies so the choice was easy for me. Some still think that buyers don't shop around. that is completely false, they do, and if they find what they want on another site cheaper the bite the hook. Specially freelancers and smaller companies. So yes for me the laughable rates at SS and Istock gave me an easy to choice to not participate on their exploitation. I'm still uploading to the 'dime royalty agencies' (IS and SS) simply because i can't afford to lose five figures earnings every year. AS is growing and it's by far my best earner. P5...is 'stable' 
162
« on: September 30, 2021, 05:31 »
For me leaving Shutterstock gave very quickly more sales on Adobe Stock so for me yes without a doubt.
163
« on: September 18, 2021, 15:12 »
:........................................Deleted.
164
« on: September 13, 2021, 16:47 »
Same here. My goal was 1000-1500$ day as I was already at 500$ day on week days. Nowadays my reality has gone to 100-150$/day Quite a backwards ride......
165
« on: August 18, 2021, 01:39 »
Good luck to you. I think you do the right move. Right now , unless you live in a very cheap world stock video or photography is one of the worst rewarding jobs you can do. Sure you have a lot of freedom but economically it is a disaster. I would say that even as a hobby it is also a loosing proposition as the aesthetics of "stock images" are mostly 99% very poor and you enter a rat wheel where you produce more and more mediocre or bad content chasing a few dimes. Wish you all the success with the new adventure. It surely will work out fantastic.
166
« on: July 26, 2021, 05:56 »
As many have already told you run away from the same scammers that ripped many off with Freepik dubious schemes
If tou want to get involved with them despite all the warnings dont come here later rambling full of tears
167
« on: July 26, 2021, 05:55 »
As many have already told you run away from the same scammers that ripped many off with Freepik dubious schemes
If tou want to get involved with them despite all the warnings dont come here later rambling full of tears
168
« on: July 12, 2021, 07:47 »
No He just runs away from thieves. You might feel comfortable among those. Everybody picks up their choices and companions in this road called life. Good luck to you. You might need it it sticking with that "gang" You pulled your good files and don't upload, then complain about the low income from SS? Is that how to make more in this business? I don't think the terms include a NDA and they can KMA if we aren't allowed to talk about the piss poor pay we get.
169
« on: July 05, 2021, 01:42 »
I was saying that future prospects will not be so bright because a breaking point has happened when they introduced their new rules. You just have to look at the content that is being upload now and by who. It is very very weak. You might think that good enough and competing on price will make up for it. i disagree. Buyers will look for content somewhere else if they cannot find what they are looking for. They don't care if the have to pay 1 dollar for photo or 10. Content is king and once you are dissatisfied you close subscription or single buys and look somewhere else. Getty/Istock went through it because their crazy price rising when H&F acquired the company made many customers jump ship. Now on SS many contributors are jumping ship and not looking back at Oringer child. The Tsunami always takes a while to happen but when it does the consequences are catastrophic. Once investors see this ( I was saying 12 or 24 months ) the stock value might drop sharply. That's my prediction ...might be completely off. Only time will tell. Now it's time to celebrate double digit benefits at the expense of the contributors slash. The owners are sacking their heavy bags for a reason. From a business point of view clever . They are already reaping what they sought. They are also selling. That is a big red flag. You will see what will happen in the next 12 or 24 months. Oringer will be already out. But mark my words. Shutterstock will not even be in the top 4 in a few years....
from a business point of view floating an IPO is always followed by selling when stock options mature - no predictor of the company's prospects
170
« on: July 04, 2021, 08:27 »
From a business point of view clever . They are already reaping what they sought. They are also selling. That is a big red flag. You will see what will happen in the next 12 or 24 months. Oringer will be already out. But mark my words. Shutterstock will not even be in the top 4 in a few years. This stock used to float around 25-50 range, now they crossed $100 USD mark. They cleverly took all the greedy steps for the company.
We contributors are crying. I lost almost 50% of my earning. 
171
« on: July 03, 2021, 16:34 »
Yes Oringer is a thumb sucker and as soon as him and the other idiot that runs thr place run to other pastures the greener ours will be Making fun and jokes about people that are successful, just to patheticaly try to show that you don't care about their succes and that your own success on some more spiritual level is where value is, is again pathetic. You guys are making fools of yourselves. All you can do is suck one of Oringers guitars
172
« on: June 19, 2021, 15:16 »
I dont think that statement is true, specially now that there are not many players left. Having exclusive content at Istock/Getty, Stocksy,Arcangel,.....can be better as there are not really significant players left. As of pond5 if you shoot for example editorial videos you have basically two options. be at P5 regular collection and also being undercutted for pennies at SS or be exclusive at P5 get 60% and raise your prices accordingly if you think the clip is unique because you dont have anyone that can give it away. If you shoot creative basically there are only 4 players in town and sorry to say but Istock/getty and SS are garbage because of their ultralow prices . Horrible. I regret going exclusive
Being exclusive anywhere for any content in this industry is the kiss of death. That even includes image exclusive.
173
« on: May 28, 2021, 13:30 »
We are all waiting for this for years now. don't hold my breath that it is ever going to happen. In this field Adobe has been sleeping and SS and Getty/Istock Alamy have taken such a big advantage over the years that I doubt Adobe will be able to become a leader in Editorial. Too late for that.
174
« on: May 28, 2021, 04:32 »
Freepic scammers & troops from Malaga. Don't walk away.....run.
175
« on: May 23, 2021, 02:50 »
I agree on everything but on this point. It is not a couple of years. It has been now more than 5 years that I have not seen anything interesting in any of the known big stock sites. Yes lots of "useful" images. Quality nothing zilch nada. I remember as you said big names with amazing portfolios at Getty 10 years ago. People with published books and really powerful images. All this has been gone for a long time. Any serious photographer that want to make a name and loves photography does not walk but run away as fast as he/she can from stock photography nowadays. In a couple of years or sooner, the agents will wonder why they have less images coming in and quality going down too.
It might be too late to turn back by then, all the photographers would have moved on to something else by then.
Such a shame, it might have been a closed shop to get in, although, I was 23 when I got accepted and it was a big deal then. There were loads of photographers I admired, the work was so much better then, replaced by what I can see generally are snaps.
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