a really terrible start to the year for me on AS,at the moment my weekly rank is worse than my full rank.

This January so far is much worse than January 2024 and I risk ending the month at a loss compared to last year,but anything can still happen,the month is still long.

the only thing I know is that yesterday I didn't work,the desire to create is currently reduced to a minimum,given the poor results so far since the beginning of the year,I've actually earned more on SS up until now,I hope that the situation on Adobe will improve as soon as possible,and I can find my creative spirit again! 

The driving force is customer interactions, not chaos and not a magical computer program "looking after" contributors and "distributing" sales to us.

That would make zero sense and remove all incentive to understand customer needs..

Customers are the only people that matter for agencies. As it should be.

but there's no point in insisting,because as I said,you can't know and I don't know either.

in my opinion everything is not so black and white,but it also has many shades of grey,and one thing does not necessarily exclude the other.

why you say:"That would make zero sense and remove all incentive to understand customer needs"

not necessarily,and a well-defined program does not exclude the needs of customers and the importance of what is produced.

In my opinion it's not all so black and white,but there are many nuances.

but like I said,this is just my opinion,I can't know,and neither can you,nor anyone else.

and now I think that's enough because we are deviating too much from the main theme of this discussion!

actually since the beginning of the year SS has been doing better than Adobe for me,although I don't think it will last,and soon Adobe will be back to normal.

In any case,it's nice to see some good video sales and above-normal royalties on SS too,considering that I haven't uploaded to SS since September 2023.

in my opinion the merger with Getty will bring more customers on both platforms,it is plausible to think that it will be possible to reach Getty customers also from SS,the problem is that knowing Getty,they will probably bring SS to 15% non-exclusive,but we can't know yet.

Adobe is and remains the best agency in my opinion,and the millions of AI contents uploaded every week make no difference,what in my opinion makes the difference is the number of contributors.

It doesn't matter whether there will be billions of contents on Adobe or not,but the biggest problem that AI is bringing is the amount of contributors that is increasing,because to produce AI content you don't need expensive equipment,or being in particular locations,or paying models,and is accessible to everyone in a very simple way without particular knowledge.

with the increase in contributors the slice of the pie becomes smaller,because in my opinion a program can easily manage billions of contents,but then dividing customer requests by an excessive number of contributors I think is a different story.

but I also think Adobe will have factored this in too,I'm pretty sure they saw this coming too and we'll all continue to earn more the same over time.

although I admit that at the moment the situation appears rather dramatic! 

@yuriy thanks for posting this,you can clearly see that no one is selling yet,it's not good,because under 10,000 with 14 sales is really little.

but congratulations on your first time under 10,000! 

@Cobalt thanks,but you also did an extraordinary job last year,and I know that you also always try to create the highest quality and marketability possible,and continuing to do it for a long time as you are doing is not easy.

yes,I think we need at least 5000+ AI people contents with high quality and marketability,contents that stand out,useful,different,interesting....it's not easy.

and then it also takes a long time before they start selling regularly,then it depends,this also takes a bit of luck I think,but also the ability to create them at the right time.

I still believe that dedicating time to creating better and sellable content is always the best choice.

last month I uploaded 617 contents,but I don't know how many of these 617 I will sell.

what I'm doing now is different,I'm pretty sure that this are contents that will sell,but at most I will be able to produce 120 of these contents in a month,because clearly require much more time.

today is a holiday in Italy,Spain,France,Germany,Russia,Iceland,Hungary and Romania.

Epiphany or "Befana" in Italian language.

I see a lot of juicy royalties,but the number of sales is very low.

interesting to note that from the beginning of the year until now I have only sold real photos.

exactly,I also started late in 2018,30k files that had 20 years to mature,with countless many more interactions,by now it would have been very different!

I believe that Adobe is different from other agencies,because from what I see the way in which customer requests are managed and therefore sales works differently.

if this were not the case,it would not be possible to earn more already!

the total search for content on Adobe Stock right now reports 624 million,which is at least double of when contributors started to see a decrease in sales at other agencies.

that is,how is it possible that with 624 million content in December I made 73,5% more sales and 52,2% more earnings?

this wouldn't be possible in a "random way" with the amount of content there is on Adobe today.

and then I really don't think that a company like Adobe hasn't thought about the consequences of starting to accept AI content.

what do you think they did? they said: "but yes,let's start accepting millions of contents a week,then we'll see what happens and hope for the best!" 

but of course not!Adobe certainly made a long-term projection and evaluated all the consequences of this choice.

this is why in my opinion it won't matter at all on Adobe whether there will be billions of contents in the future or not,because everything has simply already been thought out down to the smallest detail,and in fact you can already see it now.


and sorry if I derailed maybe too much from the main topic...my fault sorry! 

in my opinion it could be good news from the point of view of sales volume which could increase for us contributors with a merger.

if they want to hope for a better future they must first of all change the royalty structure,the percentage for contributors must be higher,we are the ones who produce the contents,yes they sell,but they take 85% of the sale,and it is truly too much!

can be for them an opportunity to review their policies,but knowing the 2 subjects I highly doubt it!

the first sale on AS of 2025,today January 2nd at around 3 pm Italian time. 

I'm still waiting for the first sale of 2025,at 11.57 am Italian time I still don't see any sales! 

2025 will be an important year in which I will have to make important decisions.

regarding microstock,I will have to at least double the earnings if not triple compared to the 2024 total.

I take this opportunity to wish everyone the best for a better new year both in the microstock and with the people close to you and in everyday life.

happy new year everyone! 

Glad to hear your December is going well. My December will probably be 15-20% less than Dec 23. The only month in this year which will be lower than last year.

eta now dropping to pos 505

thank you  ,but in reality I am not very satisfied with the results,because 50% more than a small sum is still a small sum!

to be at least acceptable it should be at least 150% more in earnings each month compared to the same month of the previous year,that is,in January 2025 I should make at least 150% more than in January 2024 and so for all the months!

and I repeat,150% more in earnings would be barely acceptable,given that a year has passed.

throughout this year I have more or less gone with 40-70% more in sales number every month compared to the same month last year.

anyway ok,for the moment I'll keep this 50% more,I will try to create more people content,the problem is that being able to do everything takes a long time.

What should I do?Should I start being an AI spammer too? 

I'll see how it goes,if I can grow quickly by continuing doing things well,even in indexing ok,if not I'll start being a spammer too,generate,upscale,AI indexing,without even looking at the contents and go!

I'll evaluate how next year starts,but I'm already framing a pattern I don't like.

we'll see next year I hope I'm wrong.

thank you,happy holidays to you and all of you too!