There are probably less then 5000 serious contributors in microstock.
Using the Fotolia week rank, I got it to 4000 once with less than 200 pictures there.

A few industries are probably responsible for more than 80% of the uploads. There will always be people from undeveloped countries where 0.25/d is not that low, but they are not the big threat here.

I've got less than 500 images there and my seven day rank is regularly under 3,000 depending on how many sales I make. My regular rank is 5,000 and it is rare that my 7-day ranking goes above the 5,000 but sometimes it does for a day or two.

I would agree with gostwyck that opting out of DPC has made little difference to sales volume on FT main site and it is 'encouraging' to note that DPC-optersout do not appear to be being punished as optersout of subs were punished at FT in the old days. (If you opted out of subs as an exclusive, within days, your images were never seen and sales dropped off a cliff. FT actually explained how the algo worked and why you would get few sales when opted out of subs).

As to serious contributor numbers, I don't know how many there would be. I'm a serious contributor with relatively few images. I make most of my money with the occasional commission from long-standing clients. Nevertheless, I wouldn't like to go without my stock income even if it is less than �300/month. It is not to be sneezed at. And I do keep adding to my portfolio at a steady but minimal rate.

What does surprise me about DPC is that at least one image factory with 500,000 images is still opted in despite having the same port at Shutterstock. If I were to lose my ODD's income at SS because I opted in to DPC, then my income from SS would easily be halved. If an image factory with income from SS and DPC saw that SS income halve as a result of buyers downloading from DPC instead of buying ODD packs at SS, I would think they would notice that drop in income and withdraw from DPC to protect their SS ODD sales. But maybe things work differently when you have 500K pics at every agency on the planet! Maybe they just don't care or have some sort of links with DPC/FT that they're not going to reveal.

Istock is saying we need more puppets in our videos

More puppets in the videos and more muppets to make 'em. 

Interesting site. If you click on an image, you're linked to the next page with the image as wallpaper and there's a 'Portfolio of author @.........' on that page. If you click on that '@ author' it takes you to a very limited/selected portfolio of the author. Can't find any live links to FT or the author's port at FT. Looks almost like a 'curated' collection but with no links to other agencies.

Only confirms my suspicion that in any large, dysfunctional corporation, there are significant numbers of executives at various levels that have a screw loose. Did it not occur to anyone at iStock involved with this farce, that You Tube means 'public' and that their audience would partly consist of contributors who rightly feel insulted by the low commission rates they receive for producing 'expensive' footage. UFB wi' knobs on!

I Joined Fotolia 1 month ago.
I was only with Shutterstock since July 2013. I work hard and I am already on the 0.36 club. I think I will be in the .38 club by July 2014.
I heard it would be good to be on more than one site, so I decided to try Dreamtime and Fotolia.
I actually liked Fotolia, they were really fast reviewing my illustrations, they accepted 99 % of my stuff.
I opt out from DPC. I didn't liked at all this story. I earn a lot with my On Demands on Shutterstock and don't want to compete with myself and put our future earnings in serious risk.

Well, and then I just read the '5% - 8%' commission thing and the 'oh-now-we-offer-you-a-fantastic-raise-to-20%/25%'

They are so generous with the people who create the images. I wonder what would those company be without our images.

I think they are PARASITES.

How in earth they still have people willing to opt in on DPC is beyond my reasoning.

Sometimes I read that it is impossible to earn a good amount starting now in the microstock industry. They say it is too late. Well, I know it is not true. And I think that if we all opt out from DPC, the future is still good. Don't be fooled by the apocalypse theory, don't let them be successful on making this business a short term thing. Don't prostitute yourself for 5%.

I will leave for now my images on Fotolia, and will not submit one more image. I will center all my work in Shutterstock. Maybe wil try Symbiostock and Stocksy in the future.

I am tired of dishonest people...

Exactly my reasoning for opting out of DPC...potential loss of ODD sales at SS.

It was only recently that I realised that FT was offering 'credit packages' dubbed as 'subscription packages' ($25 for 5XXL). I'm sure that these too will be taking some sales away from the genuine credit packages at SS....and how generous of FT to now pay 20% to DPC optoutees on these packages instead of the usual subs rate. I was wondering where my increased ratio of subs sales payments (0.29 credits) was coming from. It was coming from those $5 XXL downloads for which I got 29 cents

Trouble with FT has always been lack of communication on changes that adversely affect contributors and excessive cheerleading for any changes supposedly beneficial to contributors. They (FT) always have the advantage unless you visit the site every day to discover what new and wondrous packages they've invented for the customer. Then you have to try to work out how that latest deal for the customer is going to screw you.

So, whilst I'll leave what I have at FT for the time being and wait to see how things develop, I'll stop uploading and issue a warning to myself...they're just one further misstep away from me deleting everything there.

The only good business reason for not opting out of DPC as far as I can see is that the 'DPC-deniers' have >90% of all sales across all micro agencies as subs payments and that DPC offers yet another outlet for extra subs-price sales.

If not, then staying in does not make business sense and that some other, hitherto undivulged, argument must be in play when you try to convince others to stay in.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_manipulation

Distraction by scapegoat.

Came across what I think is a Print on Demand in the US with all Shutterstock images. One of my pics is there too and I'm not in BigStock. Reported it but so far no action.

http://pd.gostrategic.com/glassprints

I opted out my 1371 images a few days ago, somehow my images are all still up. I even made sure to hit "save". Anyone else notice this?

Takes 'em a few days to remove the images but when I opted out the images were still visible initially but not 'clickable'/downloadable.

BTW. I see that the Africa Studio factory is still innit2winnit there with more than 450,000 images!
Quick, someone send them an email. Probably wouldn't do any good. Maybe they're part-owned by FT. 

BME in $ by 18th of this month due to one big S.O.D and an E.L. Subtracting these from April would bring me out at about the same as last month (which was my previous BME) in $ and dl's.
So, April looking good.

Quote from: OM on April 26, 2014, 18:25

Quote from: Pilens on April 26, 2014, 02:10

Quote from: Ron on April 26, 2014, 01:57

Quote from: stocked on April 26, 2014, 01:46

It's a sub but if you optioned in for emails-notification for sales you you get your email-notice  from the sale from [email protected] instead [email protected] as a normal subsale.

Thanks, I was wondering if they changed their email address, but those are dollar club sales then. Ok, so its starting to happen.

I don't know. Something is wrong. I get also credit sale e-mails from [email protected]. How can that be?

Me too. Some 3's and one 10.

I think the point is that IF DPC takes off and the word spreads those credit sales will begin to erode as customers transition to the even cheaper stuff.

Of that I have no doubt but my point in posting that 'm' emails also contain sales and not just subs was to make clear that you can't rely on 'm' emails to distinguish between DPC subs and FT subs because DPC doesn't do anything other than subs and I've had both subs and sales in 'm' emails.

Quote from: Ron on April 26, 2014, 01:57

Quote from: stocked on April 26, 2014, 01:46

It's a sub but if you optioned in for emails-notification for sales you you get your email-notice  from the sale from [email protected] instead [email protected] as a normal subsale.

Thanks, I was wondering if they changed their email address, but those are dollar club sales then. Ok, so its starting to happen.

I don't know. Something is wrong. I get also credit sale e-mails from [email protected]. How can that be?

Me too. Some 3's and one 10.

Maybe I'm overcautious but when I get mail like this, I never open it but Google the site in the title first. 20K images and lots of the same names recurring. Loada crap! Place mail into spam without opening and an hour or so later I got a mail from FAA to say that part of their subscriber database had been 'compromised'.