The end of photography?

It's strange how virtually everyone here, mainly sellers of course, champions the virtues of DT. However, as we all know from our own sales, most of the the real buyers don't. Why is this?

Perhaps because there are many types of buyers. I need the largest possible selection, editorial and raster graphics. Since I don't like to spend more than 30 mins per day for my 6 euro (3x2 euro commissions) and I also need to read the article in that time and email the suggestions, searching should be superfast. The best match of IS is slow and doesn't give the right relevance > longer searches. DT is just, well..., faster.
It's not a self-vested interest since 1 - SS makes me more, and 2 - I don't buy my own images, as a rule.
QC on IS might be better but for a 400-800px image, it doesn't matter whether the feathering is 1 or 2px; or there is some "distortion".
Different buyers, different needs.

The sites that have it should really discontinue their contributors part of referral programs. And when doing that, they could raise their commission payed to owners of the content to account for the savings they would have for payed out referrals.

+1 - and we would get rid of all the pimping, spamming, yelling and big annoying badges too. Contributor-referring is taken away from our income. I want to be my own referrer. Buyer referring is totally different. A prime example is the blog of sjlocke that is a buyer's guide. We don't need more competitors, we need more buyers.

I'm gradually moving up, but since I'm so far down, all I'm passing is people who quit uploading.

Just checked. I fell down 80 positions again since last week. Not that I'm not uploading or getting many rejects. I just don't sell shots more recent than 2 years.

Isn't the average wage in China around $3,000?

No. Top wages in the glitter cities on the east coast (Shanghai, Shenzen, HK) maybe. Beijing is much less and the giant mainland is still very poor. That's where the sweatshops are. Every 2 years or so, they move west about 200km to keep up with the receding low wage line.

The typical wage in India (Chennai) or the Philippines is about 0.70$/hr, 0.25$/hr if you provide food and a (crap) place to sleep. The call-center industry pays 1.1$/hr in the developed areas, 0.5$/hr in the rural areas. If you are a foreigner operating these, you need to double the price for the obligatory bribes or you will drown in red tape, mysterious power and net outages.

The main problem for photographers there is that they totally lack cultural empathy with the western market and lifestyle. The Chinese will have great autumn leaves shots but as to concepts involving models, they are totally in the dark. Filipinos for instance have a totally different perception of female beauty than the west. One striking difference: girls need to be fat to be attractive there. When they're about 18 they all start to eat 6 times per day till they look like their mom at 22. The west still has this "slim" preference, what Filipinos call "skinny" and "poor".

A very conspicuous exception on all this is Singapore with some great and productive model photographers (Phildate). But it's a totally westernized city. South Korea has very western tastes too. I wonder why there aren't more of them on stock.

Nope, I'm talking about the simple sphere with a wrap texture like you've done and posted

Either she changed the links or you didn't see the images, since it's not a text wrapped around a globe, put a pig and a devil standing on/grabbing a partial globe.

I understood the question as "Which agency do or would I recommend; not which was the best for buyers." 

I understood the question as best for buyers, not best for me/you/any contributor. This is a real life situation. If I would recommend a small site just because it was in my interest, or because I liked the guy that runs it, and it turns out that there are much better sites later, - I would lose my credibility. What's more, if they subsequently ask me to scout the images myself (which happened) I would suffer from it.

Cutcaster, how nice it may be, just doesn't have the choice of a very large agency. Arcurs is on CC, Iofoto, Monkey... but they are on DT too. I got them plus much more, and even for a lower price. A buyer has another mindset than a contributor, and other goals. The goal is to find the right picture in the least possible time. That's why the search engine is so important. A buyer doesn't care who made the image. The exclusive content of IS is all over DT by copycats. Sad, but the buyer doesn't care.

Thinkstock does not look attractive to buyers yet. It looks like all SX customers use SS, FT and DT now. I notice big increase of my income at these three sites this month.

Oh that's why. I noticed a huge increase on DT the first 3 days of February. That was right after the SX final email. In hindsight, I got an unusual number of ODs on SS too. Of course, it might be just a coincidence. I am looking regularly at TS in my niche, and for sure it's a crap selection. Perhaps they will iron this out in a few months, getting more content, but by that time it might be too late.

But, I am experiencing something very strange there ... My subscriptions sales are higher than credit sales.  I have two subscription sales, each for 35 cents.  I have four credit sales, one for 26 cents, two for 29 cents ...I'm wondering how credit sales got so far below the subscriptions?
PS:  Thanks for posting about the slow down.  I was starting to think I was already on the "black list."   

Yes they silently went back to 30%, as they announced last year. I was surprised by an Xsmall 1credit sale of 0.28$ too. I never saw anything 2 there before, unlike at IS where I even have 0.19$. Makes you think better of subs on DT, at 0.35$. 

Sorry, could you point me to the people whose RPD on any site has gone UP with the introduction of subs?

Slightly OT but I noticed the past week a few XS sales on DT for 0.28$, 1 2008 credit. Apparently they finally fell back on their 30% as announced. The subs are still 0.35$ for level 1's, and 0.36$ on SS. In that scheme, I prefer subs.

StockXpose has a very good chance of success

No he hasn't. His name is burnt forever. He was even so naive to let his real name out while registering a domain. He programmed a site (probably being a decent coder) and he filled it up with Heroturko or Rapdishare "free" shots to make it look decent. That shows how ignorant he really is. He has no chance in this field any more, not now, not later. He is done.

who . is this Digital?? just talk without knowing nothing about my sales etc.. oh god, ridiculous!

No he's not. With barely 86 sales on DT, you have nothing to say about numbers. It"s just statistical noise. Sorry.