Many contributors feel directly concerned by unfair competition.
Many contributors struggle to understand that Adobe is not developing Artificial Intelligence to manage submitted content more intelligently. They don't do it because it's simply not in their own best interest.
But the worst competition will be the generation tools directly offered to customers (without any need for skills), which will inevitably arrive and which Adobe is undoubtedly preparing, and which will absolutely no longer need the work of contributors, will no longer suppose a payment of royalties to a third party. Adobe is above all a business, a company that sees its financial interest above all else.

The enthusiastic sheeps, fans of AI image generation, making the �wow� effect accessible to everyone, are just deaf and blind, and not very capable of seeing what is coming. They are just the necessary shoehorn for autonomous AI products in the pipeline.

The topic here is: "I will never use AI".
To all the pro-AIs who sell their faith and prostration on this thread: Why not open a topic "I pray I will get eternal AI" for the simple sake of consistency and intellectual respect? 

[Edit]:I know that most AI critics tend to leave this forum, and that's unfortunately really understandable.

ADOBE, exclusive provider of propaganda visuals?

I will NEVER generate and sell AI images. I still can compete with my "OLD SCHOOL" photographies of real world  . No interest into all this fake 
Those who want to play with AI are playing a dangerous game, they can win or lose, it's the game. Accepting the rules is being mature...

Have a sunny day@all,

Rain is very usefull

[...]You consider using data to train as scarping, but this way all human being is constantly scarping through their eyes Also artist are inspired by other artist's work which should be consider similar way in your perspective? [...]

Since you defined yourself as artist here, your post is only connected to who you consider being an artist, in a low consideration way.

For some, Art is when transcendency meets the hard life's journey and sensitivity of one person, for a unique result expressed.

Who bet anything? read again! They act in their own financial interests. That's all that was expressed, there's no need to scam what was said.

Let's prepare for the coming flood. The skills of real illustrators will become useless and unrecognized. 
They will be very well received to work at McDonald's, Amazon, Deliveroo...

[...] depriving me of my livelihood for two months [...]

AI new industry (and all his new AI artists) has started the road for depriving me of my livelihood for eternity. I feel sorry that nobody will cry for me.

Bigstock no longer accept new submissions from 1st July 2023,and lowered the minimum payout at 25$.

I didn't know,now i know!

Who talked about Bigstock ? the topic is Canstock here... 

The final cashout process does not trigger an email confirmation, so it's normal to not get one. We won't start sending payments until the site is closed and sales are finished, to ensure everyone gets paid their final account balance - so no worries if a sale comes in after you submitted your payment request.

Also, thanks to everyone for their support over the years. It's been a fun ride for the last ~20 years!

Hello Duncan.
Maybe I would have been pleased to read this sooner, because I waited before requesting my final payout, there were still sales happening.
And I wanted to request, a few hours after the site has closed, but was not abble to do it. Maybe you could do something, I sent you a private mail here.
Btw, too bad Canstock is closing, it was a nice place.

I think microstock has opened up to too many amateurs and is getting too close in quality to freemium sites like Pexels, Unsplash, Pixabay and Freepik.

The race to the bottom of prices will penalize the contributors. Especially the quality ones that risk becoming invisible. And it will be even worse with AI available to everyone.

I have a portfolio of 5,000 images and sell much more than contributors with 50,000 images. Quality matters, but with this invasion of AI my images risk becoming invisible.

I am full time and until 3 years ago microstock was 90% of my earnings.

Now I earn the same amount but the microstock is now at 50% and the rest is print-on-demand and commissioned work.

I achieved this by working hard on my personal branding with blog, social media, and personal website.

If microstock agencies don't change, I don't see a brilliant future, they will look more and more like sites like Unsplash, Pexels because the best contributors are all leaving.

I totally agree too. Thank you for your post.