Yes, I know, but is 3 years too long? Perhaps it should be a shorter time. Yes, I know that a non-seller is sometimes purchased after a few years but how many non-sellers are purchased more than once or twice after 3 years? DT also allows images to be re-keyworded without any review so if a non-seller sits for 2-1/2 years then the photog pays to have it re-keyworded it can sit for another 3 years. New keywords don't improve image quality and some older images are just not up to snuff.

It's just a thinly veiled excuse to implement their anti-jackalope policy. 

If iStock stopped being a total mess or SS figured out how to make Big Stock an effective PAYG arm, I think DT might feel the real effects of this jumble of prices.

I agree. I think their slogan should be... We're Dreamstime and we are OK. Not terrible. I'd say DT's problem is they seem to lack an identity. They just don't have anything they can hang their hat on. They used to pay 50% and had some bragging rights about being a good paying agency. Not anymore though. The tiered pricing model really doesn't allow them to say they are the cheapest, priciest or even the simplest. Their collection isn't the best curated (their weird similar rules), but it also isn't the worst.

If I were them, I'd move back to 50% or at least close to it. Normalize my pricing. I might even move to a one or two sku pricing model and just sell the high res files and maybe a web size. I think if you get the RPD up high enough and earnings up enough, then you could start trying to lure exclusives away from iStock into your own exclusive program.

That's probably too many changes to make it feasible, but they definitely need to try establish some differentiating factor.

And if you wanted to pay, you would have all jumped all over PictureEngine (which, ironically showed up about a month and a half after I started on my idea).

I was interested in PictureEngine, but (like most of these things) they weren't currently working with illustrators.

I used to have RPD in my spreadsheet but then I thought what's the point?  The number has little to do with overall earnings and that's what pays my bills (almost).  I think the main reason why Jon is now a multi millionaire is because over the past few years istock has lost a lot of its buyers and it looks like most of them went to SS.  It's impossible to know if we are better or worse off.  Istock cut commission percentages and its harder to compete with their exclusives.  The fact is that buyers download more with SS subs, that's really what makes RPD meaningless.  Would you rather 3 x $0.38 or 1 x $1?

Overall earnings have gone down for a lot of us but is that because of the worldwide economic downturn, or the big increase in competition, or the commission cuts and the complete incompetence of some sites?  I wouldn't blame it all on a low RPD.

To a certain extent, you are right. You can't change RPD at a particular agency, so it doesn't really affect your bottom line. On the other hand, it really determines the viability of an agency or the industry in general.

It's the reason I'm so tough on SS. After several years of looking at my numbers, I determined that I was never going to sell the volumes necessary to make what I wanted there. If anything, it was getting harder just to maintain my current volumes. So, I decided to focus on more profitable agencies that had the potential to actually grow into what I wanted.

If you look at your numbers, and everything looks great and is growing. Then, you should definitely continue what you are doing. But, if you are like me (which I assume many people are), you know that you won't ever have the type of popular images that are going to sell thousands of times a month to make the $.50-$.70 RPD a profitable operation.

I can, however, sell hundreds of images a month. So, I funnel all my new images to higher RPD sites in an attempt to increase my income. I just can't afford to keep supporting sites like SS that are never going to work for me.

Many would argue that it's a shame sites like Shutterstock gave Getty the idea in the first place. What goes around comes around.

The majority of people here love Shutterstock because they get their highest monthly income from them, and to be honest I can't blame them because most have never known any better or just can't understand otherwise, whilst I do upload to Shutterstock it's through wanting to maintain an Independence status rather than going exclusive somewhere, however I've said it before and I'll say it again if Shutterstock closed it's doors it would benefit us all. Shutterstock pay the lowest average RPD of the big 4, if all the Shutterstock customers went elsewhere we'd all benefit.

I expect I'll get a barage of negative replies to this, and that is why Jon Oringer can pay the lowest then sell the site and make millions, knock out a two minute non-personal patronising email and get loads of lemmings saying what a great place SS is. As someone said earlier I don't begrudge him anything, he's a businessman that has made a lot of money, but let's put things into perspective.

Totally agree.

I am not too happy about that so I am considering ktools for my other site..

the next CMS "if I am getting one", needs to be better than the one I already have..

If I get ktools before these issues are sorted, all it will do is annoy me

LOL. It seems like there is always something to fix. 

Wow.. That's a big issue imo.. I am going to get a new CMS when I have time to work on it and implement it on my other site probably in a few weeks, and this is a good warning.. I will keep an eye on this.. if corrected will get ktools, if not then some other CMS..

It's a shame because ktools looks like a good solution.. but this issue is IMPORTANT..

Your site seems to do it as well. A search for key gives you key, turkey, keyboard.

Yeah there seem to be a few kinks to work out on the newer features.  Good news though, there is some search updating underway and Jon posted a preview of some of the changes that will be in 4.1.1 that he says will be released soon.  So things are moving along.

I'm sure I'm going to end up hiring a pro to do more tweaking in the future for things that are over my head in the code department but with a few more of the upcoming features and fixes in place Photostore v4 will be pretty robust out of the box.

Thanks for the heads up. Did you test the update he posted on the forums?

Why is everyone so happy about this??

Soon it'll be being run by suits squeezing every dime out of each and every one of us. SS has been great until now, I fear this 'lovely heartfelt letter' from Jon is merely a harbinger of changes afoot.

I can't say I feel any doom or gloom about it. I'd say it is more apathy.

The article itself is proof that the images are not *completely* useless - although since buzzfeed likely didn't purchase any image licenses for the article, maybe they've got a point.

LOL. I think you are right. There do seem to be a lot of these types articles.

This partner stuff is really starting to get under my skin. Some agency invites me to join their site. I go there, do a search and see my work is already there. I think Veer is on my hit list for elimination. Now if I can just get their Dashboard to work.

If there is no money in it, then why not give it away?

I think I'd rather bury all my images in a hole in the ground than give them away for free. I can understand your frustration though. I feel it too. That's  the reason why I opened my own shop and only upload to sites that pay better now. I wish there were more sites that pay well though.

Looking at sales for independents, I don't see this as a great time for anyone to dump IS exclusivity. 

Sue, as Istock exclusive, is reporting $ down 5% from August and down 26% from last Sept. 

As an independent, I am down 8% from August and 35% from last year. 

Others from both camps are reporting similar.  Why would anyone make a drastic change to or away from exclusivity in such a volatile situation?

Isn't your problem sort of the same problem as Sue's? You were doing really well at iStock (majority of your earnings from them), then they dried up and couldn't be replaced by the other agencies.