Stopping uploads is also an easier solution for the many people who simply cannot afford to switch of portfolios right now.

It should always be a personal decision. If you simply need the money right now, don�t do it. Feed the family, but you can focus your uploads aggressively elsewhere and bring more balance.

I admit it's a really hard decision to make as to which direction to go. Money is low. One thing's for sure, I won't be submitting anymore content. And I will almost definitely be deactivating my video port and making some clips exclusive on Pond 5. As for my photo port, I'm very much undecided whether I should let it sit there or deactivate it too.

It is not possible as now to have both accounts under the same umbrella-name. What I did is to use the same name but with a "_exclusive" added so any potential client could guess that I had another non exclusive account there.

Ah very clever! That's a good strategy.

Their company, their forum. They can do whatever they want with it. Interesting to see the lengths they're going to though.

Very true. Though that was one of the most harmless threads that emerged over the last few days. There are other threads that are much more provocative and very much anti-SS that still remain on the forum.

What are the advantages at o5 for exclusivity? Aside from pricing your vids is there search placement advantages, or some other value that goes with putting eggs in one basket?

I was surprised to read that there is no search placement advantages with exclusive content on Pond 5. And you can set your own pricing with both exclusive and non exclusive clips. I guess the main advantage is the higher percentage received on sales (60% versus 40%.) Exclusive clips also get special branding - basically large bold text that indicates that the clip is exclusive. They're also promoted in e-mails (and possibly other forms of advertising.)

SS are acting like a bunch of n***s. Meanwhile, their online mods are acting like the Gestapo.

At the moment, I'm trying to sign up for an exclusive account at Pond 5. Just to clarify, I don't want to make all my clips exclusive. I just want to make certain clips exclusive and make the rest available on more than one agency. Of course during this turbulent time period, there's so few agencies that pay respectable commissions for videos. SS has just thrown it's contributors under a bus (unless you can make massive amounts of sales over there to get to their top paying levels.) So as far as I know, that leaves just P5 and Adobe Stock as the only two viable options.

However, I'm curious about this second account that I have to set up. According to the instructions, I have to click on a button that says "Sign Up Now" on the Sell Your Media page. I can't see that option so I guess I'll just click on the "Sign Up" option. I'm asked to create a new user name which I'm finding a little unusual. I think I would prefer to have a single user name when I'm selling both exclusive clips and non exclusive clips. That way, I have a common identity and buyers would realise that all my videos were produced by the same person. If they like one of my clips and are considering purchasing it, chances are that they may like another one of my clips on my second account that has a different user name. I'm not even sure if P5 lets buyers know that two accounts with potentially usable videos may belong to the same person.

Welcome to shitstock where we'll do everything we can to bleed you dry. Just when you feel like you've been ripped off in the worst possible way, we'll find exciting new ways of ripping you off even more. Don't delay - contribute today. We value your content.

I wouldn't bother with selling videos through iStock. You'll only get a few dollars, sometimes less.

So then, right after signing up as a P5 video exclusive, I started deleting my 700+ clips from Adobe. AS has given me very few video sales since I started doing that in 2017, and the last video sale was in 2018� almost two years ago. Doesn't seem like much of a loss.

It's a shame one has to pick from so few options to maintain any sense of value in the work we produce, but that's where we are. I'm still "all in" to Adobe with my stills, but my videos will be completely gone there by this evening.

Yea selling videos (or trying to) on Adobe is incredibly tough. Ive had videos on there for at least two years and not a single sale. Though granted, I have a tiny video port on there. However, Ive only been submitting videos to Pond 5 for a fairly short time and the port size there isn't much bigger and Ive already had a number of sales. So P5 looks a lot more promising with regards to clip sales. I know it might seem logical for me to go exclusive on P5 (I'll probably disable my videos on SS) but I  just can't put all my eggs in one basket. Too risky. I'd prefer to keep my options open even our options right now are extremely limited. Hmmm....guess I could mark my editorial videos on P5 as exclusive since AS won't accept them.

I think people put a bit too much faith in how amazingly unique and brilliant their content is

Perhaps some contributors have done searches for the kind of content they have on the various agencies and found very little of the same stuff from their competitors. That was the situation with me. I admit to having sold a few clips which feature a certain type of content which is not common at all. So only a few sales and they took a very long time to sell so perhaps the demand for them is not that great. Regardless, it goes to show that some of us do have hard to find content that can sell.

Actually, those particular kind of clips have only sold for me on SS (and one of them just a few days ago.) If I close down my video port on SS, I can only hope that those same kind of buyers who want that stuff will migrate to P5 and AS.

Something strange has happened to the design interface on P5 from the buyer's side. Say for example, I get over 1000 results for a search term, only the first page of results will be displayed. There is no option to advance to the next page like there used to be. Is this the same for everybody else?

I have scads of pics from New Mexico. But there's no way to indicate that's actually where they're from.

Except for the title and description. The only way really.