I have only private sets for tracking purpose. I still have multiple downloads on the same subject from one customer.

Not so sharp landscape photos with weak corners from a 1-inch compact camera in 6 MPx are accepted almost all the time, sharper landscape images from full frame camera and corner-to-corner sharp lens are rejected in majority cases because of focus

It's funny that SS recommends in "Invest in a quality lens. Prime lenses, lenses that have a fixed focal length, are a great choice. They have less internal lens elements which result in sharper content. Zoom lenses, lenses with variable focal lengths, are more versatile but have more internal components which can result in softer focus."
https://support.submit.shutterstock.com/s/article/Why-was-my-content-rejected-for-Focus?language=en_US

There are 5,652 Sunset over corn field photos. As usual many of them have a wrong description or keywords. For example https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/drone-flying-over-field-sunset-1750530749 or https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/majestic-sunset-over-wheat-field-ears-1924616825
Anyway it's still hard to compete with the remaining ~2,500 sunset over corn field photos

Almost every landscape photo that has trees with leaves is being rejected for focus (The main subject is out of focus or is not in focus due to camera shake). The other agencies have no issues with my photos. How is your experience?

1.6 million contributors

How many of 1.6 million contributors are contributors with just one photo like this one https://www.shutterstock.com/g/Silvina+Andrea+Cupayolo It would be interesting to know how many active contributors on SS.

Interesting:

* Image library of approximately 390 million images.
* Footage library of approximately 23 million footage clips.
* More than 1.9 million contributors made their images, footage clips and music tracks available on
Shutterstock�s platform, compared to over 1.5 million in the prior year

I'm looking on Oleg's sunset photos and he occupies almost all first page by most relevant for sunset. Anyway his photos do not sell where well "Rare gem There�s a lot of interest in this image but it hasn�t been licensed much. Be among the first and start a trend!"

Putting the word pumpkin, as in the more words are better myth, won't make a sale if the image is of a watermelon.

I hope the wrong keywords is the result of copy/paste. I noticed for myself that sometimes I add wrong keywords when I copy/paste keywords from another image. Another example: right now if you search for Paris France by fresh content, there are at least 20 photos of Peugeot car taken in St Petersburg, Russia. It's kind of relate to France, but I bet most buyers that are searching for Paris France are not searching for cars.

To my surprise, I sell a lot of pictures from my area, and significantly more than of well-known landmarks.

Recently I went to Yellowstone National Park and there is already 106,098 photos from there on SS. What's the point for me to shoot, process, keyword and upload one more photo that no one would able to find.

The good part about Adobe, Alamy  and iStock that they usually accept the photos rejected by focus on SS.

How many unique photos do you have?

Good question. I think I would cut my portfolio at least five time if I remove duplicates. The problem is that I would most likely win if you have one wonderful photo of something and I have 1000 mediocre photos on the same subject. It would be hard to find your wonderful photo along the mess I created.  

from their viewpoint there is no reason not to keep reducing payouts

Technically SS already have all photos they need. Why would they need a few more photos of sunset or sunrise? I bet they survive even they stop all news uploads.