Maybe some posters here are familiar with the branch of mathematics known as "game theory".  It's seeing increased application in questions of economics and I think it applies here, too.

Spamming is a behavior that may hurt the group in the long run but benefit the individual in the short run. A spamming contributor makes more money right away, but damages the site's appeal to buyers, reducing his own sales in the long term.  But the short-term gain may outweigh the long-term loss, IF most of the other contributors are keywording more honestly.

It is hard to talk people out of such behaviors by appealing to what is called "enlightened self-interest", i.e. showing them a wider perspective in which their action actually has negative consequences for the individual actor as well as the group.

As a contributor, I can't really know what constitutes spam because I don't know what buyers are really looking for, i.e. what keywords they use.  Take my abalone shell for example. Do buyers in fact search for "beautiful shiny texture"?   Unfortunately none of the microstocks seem to want contributors to see the actual search terms, apparently out of fear that they'd just use that information to game the system in new ways.

I've read that in the main lobby at Google there's a giant screen on the wall showing real-time searches from all over the world. If we could see something like that for searches of microstock buyers - wouldn't we start tuning our keywords more realistically?

Despite my flagging interest in microstock I decided to submit a few more shots. And once again I'm in keyword gridlock.

I have a nice one of an abalone sea shell. Looking for ideas, I check SS for the 'most popular' images of abalone shells, and naturally I find that they've been spammed to the max, with keywords like "beauty", "beautiful", "texture", "pattern", "details", "pieces", "colorful", etc. etc.

As we all know, microstocks are preaching to us that we shouldn't spam, spamming is bad, spamming will only hurt you, spamming will be punished.  And as we can plainly see, spamming works.

So - do we keep spamming away, or play by the new rules? Are the new rules really enforced?

well what do think?

I'd like to think that a reasonable price could be found somewhere between $400 and 30 cents, and it would be not very close to either.   

I'm thinking that subscription plans are like opium to corporate employers.  They're pitched on how "their people" will be able to select from 8 gazillion images, for pennies each.  For most people in management, that would be "end of discussion" and good luck convincing them they won't get what they need - at those prices, the "need" will be adjusted.  If the actual designers complain about having to search 37 pages to find something remotely acceptable - well they're just whining because it cuts into their Facebook time.

After a few months I've pretty much lost interest in microstock. Subcription sales are what did it.  I made plenty of sales, but at 30 cents, it's not worth the effort. Ironically, microstock showed me that plenty of people like my images and will pay for them - and this made the 30 cent commissions seem even more insulting.

I'm looking for other ways to sell photos. I guess I'd rather make a $20 sale once in a great while, than let these so-called "agencies" by loading my images into an automated vending machine and paying 20 percent commissions on sales for which they do nothing.

Yes, I know they paid a reviewer, and a web site programmer, and an ISP. At these volumes of sales, those costs are covered the first time they sell an image.  

I really got discouraged after SS and DT re-tuned their searches to stop promoting new images.  

So I 've stopped for now.  Maybe I'll get interested again later, but I don't expect anything to change on the big existing sites. They've finished their "race to the bottom" and they'll have to decide if they're satisified with what they already have, and with what continues to be submitted at this prices.

Nothing. No views, no sales, for weeks on end. 

cclapper, I too once quit a job with nothing else lined up.  It's a great feeling. And after doing it once you will always know that you can stand up and walk away if pushed too far.  People will sense that about you - not something rude or belligerent, just a bit of self respect that they realize they won't be able to compromise.

I'm sure that's how a lot of people in the agencies feel. They sure don't need me and my 100 or so images.

Think of a hardware store. You go there because you know you can get that weird bolt or nut to repair the lawn mower. Once in a while, you buy a big ticket item that makes money for the store. But they need all those money-losing, oddball little parts that take up precious shelf space, to keep you coming in year after year.

I'm one of the people whose views (and sales) on new images went to 0 back in February.  I quit uploading at that time.  Oddly enough, I do make a 30 cent sale every few weeks, on one of my older images.     

So why haven't I just closed my account? Waiting for a miracle, I guess.  But by now I'm pretty well convinced that the miracle isn't coming.

The weird thing has always been - some people continue to get views on new images, and make sales. But never any explanation for the 2 groups. 

Enough is enough, I think it's time for me to pull the plug. It's just a distraction.

Cutcaster is not a "fiasco"!  It's my "fantasy" site. 

I put all my images there, with $5 price tags, and I visit them once in a while, just because they look so nice.  Maybe one will sell, someday...

I'm now so cynical that I don't even read announcements like this in detail. I let more knowledgeable people pick them apart, and the bottom line is always another cut in prices, and commissions, packaged in spin about expanding the market.

Mind you, I'm not saying these agencies are evil, it's just an evolving business.  What they're doing now is probing the resistance on supplier pricing, and so far, they haven't found any, so they keep going.  If we had hidden microphones in the conference rooms of these companies, we'd overhear new executives saying "look people, I know you find this hard to believe, but 95% of these contributors will GIVE us their photos. Seriously. And we don't need the other 5%"

.. free things on the internet are slowly disappearing.
Whatever major newspapers are left will go online and will become subscription only. 

I question whether that will happen.   It may be too late for the big print media to start successfully charging for an online version - the content has been free for too long.   NYT tried paid subscriptions for a while, and gave up.  It's true that free music came under heavy assault and eventually many people got used to paying something for downloads.  However, I think the price of music downloads will only continue to decline.

With my tiny portfolio I should not even be commenting here.  But, here goes.

To make me want to come in, make it easy for me to get out. Let me explain. I recently submitted all my images to a couple of sites, waited a few months and saw that I was getting no sales and would never reach payout. I didn't want to leave my images there, and might want to be exclusive somewhere, someday (who knows) so I decided to close the accounts.  That turned out to be a major pain, requiring me to remove each image individually.  I will NEVER go through that again. So now, before I'd consider a new site, I'd want to know how easy it is to get out, if it isn't working for me.

No categories. t's just too much work, and my images typically don't fit well into the categories anyway.