I find it remarkable that contributors defending IS never get hit by ANY of the changes IS makes, yet tons of people always end up with less $$$. Remarkable.

Different changes through these years have affected me some times positively and some times  negatively. That since yesterday most of the images I sell are S+ is just a fact, and I'm sorry if the facts do not match other people's desires or agendas.

Excellent explanation or the most recent confusion Sean. Lets see, price levels adjusting, TS become front page on Getty? IS vetta is now becoming something else. (or part of it) Price slider is changed. All kinds of collections, names, locations and pricing options. Is this a plan to make the site so obscure and confusing that no one can understand how it's working? LOL

No, now is easier, with less collections and less prices. If better or worse, I don't know. Rigth now I'm having some less total sales, but more than doubling my E+ (S+) sales, that's where all my best and mid sellers went.

" the highest selling woman on IS" also happens to be a hell of a photographer, good at concepts, brilliant at execution, intense at work, way better at the craft than most of us. What matters what she was being before being a photographer?

Quote from: tickstock on June 05, 2013, 10:59

http://www.steveallenphotography.com/

was there but jumped into the pictures, yes 4 microstock agencies but mainly he is at DT

Suprising. He seems to eran 90% less per exposed image that I earn uploading at just one microstock site, IS.

With 2600+ reads it seems that theme has some interest. And people not interested can skip it easily.

"he's the bread winner and you guys are the losers, that's the moral of the story, no matter if this discussion goes on for 50 more pages"
(XANOX)

Losers tend to whine and complain instead of looking ahead and trying new things. You have been complaining and whining every day for about eigth or ten years now. Go on.

I don't like how SS seem to get blamed for low priced subs when they were raising the prices every year until other sites stopped them.  Why would SS increase their $0.38 commission when several sites were paying $0.25?  I think subs commissions were heading much higher but now were stuck until the sites have decided they can't get any more buyers and see how much they can raise prices.  It would be hard for SS to raise prices first when they pay many of us the highest subs commission.  There was a tiny commission raise from Thinkstock but $0.28 is still a lot less than $0.38.

SS could perfectly rise prices because they have more files than anyone and they have the prestige and the trust of their customers and, even if doubling subscription prices they would go on being insanely cheap for buyers. Raising prices is something that just industry leaders can do, and SS is one of them. Prices and comissions ar not the same, btw.

Quote from: loop on May 21, 2013, 11:12

Quote from: topol on May 21, 2013, 11:06

Quote from: Xanox on May 21, 2013, 10:03

he might be a photographer but he'll go down in history as the photographer who killed the value of stock photography thanks to his bulk subs deals.

seriously, who's worse ? getty acting as a monopoly or SS selling images for 0.30$ ?

kudos to his coding and entrepreneurial skills but i see no reason to see him as a positive figure in our industry, SS is nothing but the Walmart of stock.

I got the lowest ever comissions, 9-7 cents from the getty/istock crooks... and getty is into nanopayment now, with that 'connect' junk - which actually is the final rock bottom everyone feared they will hit: the ad-space revenue model. Getty is the worst by far.

Fair or unfair, Connect is not for selling photos, just for showing them.

In case you didn't know: you don't sell photos on stock sites, you sell licenses (which basically means you allow someone else to show them around.) so this is another license, the puniest yet.

If you really think it is the same, no need to try to explain it to you. It would be a worthless effort.

Quote from: loop on May 21, 2013, 05:26

Quote from: sharpshot on May 21, 2013, 03:28

Quote from: Xanox on May 21, 2013, 00:19

Quote from: Travelling-light on May 20, 2013, 23:17

Micro is all about quick and easy files that can sell in large quantities, and this is especially true for sub sites.
Anything that's been time consuming or expensive to produce can go elsewhere.

fully agree.
the future of micro is ALL about subs and SS is the living proof of that.

How many times do you need to be told that SS isn't a subs site?  It was almost all subs 5 years ago but things have changed.  Shame your opinions are still so outdated.

It is, in my view. Subs sites are the sites that offer cheap subs, no matter if they also offer single downloads or other options. DT, Fotolia, SS etc

You can thumb your nose at the 'sub sites' all you like but I can assure you that your disappearing sales from IS are reappearing on those very same sites, mainly SS.

Last month on SS my earnings were 45% from subs and 55% from OD's, EL's, etc. So far this month subs are only 42% of earnings.

Funnily enough, as an independent contributor on IS whose port was forced over to TS, TS subs are roughly 50% of my non-sub earnings at IS itself. I reckon TS is now the second biggest agency for 'sub' sales alone.

Where did I say that I have "dissapearing sales"? I've been here for many years  and I'm on the rise moneywise, I even had my BDE recently. And TS is optative for exclusives.  Don't make up things.

Quote from: sharpshot on May 19, 2013, 14:34

It seems inevitable that Xanox will get banned here one day, I just hope it's tomorrow   I don't mind people having different opinions but when they attack others and keep posting the same uninformed drivel, I don't see why we have to put up with them for so long here?

some of what Xanox posts here is pure drivel, albeit I do think the overall theme he is trying to convey is more accurate than many of you understand. The stock industry is in decline overall from a contributors point of view, and I sadly agree with Xanox that this is only the tip of the iceberg. Xanox obviously comes from an era when stock photography had value, way before the days of microstock and photographers jumping up and down with joy by selling a photo hundreds of times for 0.25c a crack and I totally agree with many of his posts, not all of them, but many of them.

... and before RF stock had value, RM stock had value, and before RM had value people comissinoned the photos needed... ad infinitum Times change, no matter if there are people blind to this fact. I'm glad I took the micro ship; now prices are rising (at least at IS, where I'm exclusive) and I'm there, and I'm selling. I wouldn't be anywhere without microstock; I didn't had the money, nor the "contacts", nor the knowledge (then) to get in at Corbis, Getty, etc. Sometimes I suspect that the real resentment comes from the fact that microstock opened a door that was tightly closed, and that many people has come in through this door, some of them staying at subs, some at mid-stock, some reaching macro, but all of them taking the places of some others that were living in the fantasy of being protected by an impregnable fortress.   

Quote from: fotoVoyager on May 18, 2013, 12:19

I can't imagine Yuri would forgo the earnings from other sites just for the convenience of only having one agent and 20%, so I can only presume he must have negotiated a special percentage rate higher than the 20% offered to other 'special exclusives'.

I certainly don't blame him for accepting a generous deal even if it is with the devil.

Not sure why such generous terms and open exclusivity arrangements shouldn't be open to all though. It's not like it's a unique portfolio or full of rare, hard to obtain images, just lots of really great people images. If only there was a site that specialised in that.

I guess it all depends on who wanted or needed the deal more. What if Istock and Getty have both been haemorrhaging sales/customers/revenue for several months or quarters? If content is king then gaining the exclusive services of "the world's most popular microstock photographer" might boost sales and also help justify their prices. Under such circumstances I could certainly imagine non-standard terms being offered.

If I'm remmebering correctly, somewhere he said he was doing that because of Danish taxes. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Quote from: Xanox on May 18, 2013, 02:45

BWAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA !!!!!!!!!!

all i can say ... I TOLD YOU SO ... many yrs i told you so, been banned for telling the truth ... and now your microstock hero Yuri gives up micros and jumps ship on macro RF/RM as he finally realized he couldnt even pay the bills selling 0.5$ subs !

Pssst! Maybe you missed it but last October SS undertook a very successful IPO and since then the shares have more than doubled in price. Revenue at SS, according to the last financial report, is growing at 36% per annum. 'Microstock', as an industry, is actually in rude health.

Just because Yuri allowed his ego and his ambition to overrule basic business sense, and his overhead has spiralled out of control, does not in any way signal the end of the greater industry.  Yuri is just one more casualty of greed and excess. Getty/Istock and Yuri should make perfect partners in that regard.

Big, big mistake by Yuri __ he's jumped onto a sinking ship. This little 'marriage' won't last 5 years. Within that time Yuri will be begging to be back on SS.

Many business would envy SS. They have been able to get a lot of suppliers that finance and produce what they sell, and that allow their products to be sold for an hiper-hiper- bargain of a price, so ensuring that will sell a lot. With hundred thousands of these producers, SS financial success is easy to understand. But, for the supplier, selling at these prices and getting about 25% of almost nothing means that production costs are very difficult to absorb. Yes, other sites give less than 25%, but  supppliers get more money on each sale to pay for production costs and have a benefit.

(And , actually, I suppose that now Yuri will get 45% oh his sales on IS)

hahahaha this is gotta be a bombshell for many guys here.

i'm literally shi-tt-ing in my pants while laughing !

That's not a blow against microstock. That's a blow against  subs, not the concept, but the prices. Actually, it's good news for microstock photographers.

Of course, you can see "white" and read aloud "black", you are experienced in that.