But, "Income from operations of $5.6 million for the third quarter of 2017 decreased $5.7 million, or 51%, as compared to the third quarter of 2016, due primarily to increases in employee cash and non-cash compensation expenses and depreciation and amortization expense" and net income was down 47% compared to last year, which doesn't sound good to me.  Now if income was down due to increased payout percentages to contributors I would be all for it, but it seems they are paying their employees more instead.

I stopped submitting there about 1.5 years ago because all of a sudden they were rejecting almost everything for weird reasons, even though they were accepted everywhere else.  Apparently that hasn't changed.

In this case I agree with Hannafate it was probably keywords, or an overactive reviewer as suggested by Semmick.  I suppose you could do an experiment to test - submit a flower with the description, "Naked flower flaunting male and female sexual organs" - which is a perfectly accurate description for that image - and see what happens.

This is the part that got me, "... as they may have some difference that we may not be able to view right away".

Say what?  They might have hidden differences that will be revealed in the future?  After having too much to drink?  Buyers will see a difference that is invisible to the reviewer's eye?  I agree with the bit about contributors submitting whatever they want but this part makes no sense.

We are currently focused on building the network and the supporting infrastucture and plan to have the demo version in the first quarter of 2018.

I'm sure we will all be waiting with bated breath.

In our case, we will charge 5-10% (to cover marketing and transaction costs) for the same transaction.

OK, I get it - the idea is that blockchain technology will decrease the real costs of transactions so that buyers and sellers can both have more money in their pockets.  The problem is that 10% isn't going to leave much to let buyers hear about it, especially considering that you want to lower prices and presumably keep some of it yourself for profit.

can be used in our marketing campaigns.

Which are?  What kind of marketing campaigns and how much will they cost?  How well is the marketing campaign outlined in your business plan?  (you do have a thorough business plan, right?)

We are not after buzz trends or are amateur rookies that have no clue how to start and build sustainable businesses. We have been buying stock photography for a few years for our prior projects and know the buyer-side market quite well.

Buying photography for a few years doesn't make you an expert in selling images!  You certainly are amateurs when it comes to setting up selling platforms and attracting buyers.  Have you set up a successful agency or selling platform before?  If yes, then maybe you are not amateurs.  If not, then you really don't have a clue.  These ideas are a dime a dozen but implementing something like this is extremely difficult in practice as we unfortunately have seen many times before.

Again, marketing is important, but most buyers care about the costs they are incurring more than anything. So when you offer a superior cost structure made available with new technology, it will be easier to attract new buyers.

And sellers care about getting the highest prices - nobody here wants to find a new technology to lower prices.  Now if you can find a way to attract buyers without significantly lowering prices then that would be great, but otherwise what would happen in the long run is that buyers will get lower prices and sellers will get next to nothing.  Anything that lowers the price of images in the minds of buyers is hurting us long term.  Plus it won't be easy to attract buyers if they haven't heard about you.

we understand the difficulty and expected cost of user acquisition and will be using most of our investment and future earnings to attract buyers.

How much do you anticipate spending for advertising?  What sort of campaigns on what platforms?  How will you get the word out relative to what SS and the other major agencies are spending? 

How many images do you need to attract buyers?  Will these be individual sites linked together a la Symbiostock or will you be starting an agency?  If the latter, what will your prices be and how will you review images?  What kind of search algorithms will you use?

It seems to me you have identified perceived "inefficiencies" in the costs of transactions that can be solved through blockchain technology - great - but haven't thought through all the other aspects of starting and promoting a new agency - or whatever structure you envision for this endeavor.  Many more details about your business plan are needed for us to understand what you are trying to do and to judge whether it is a good idea with any chance of success.  Sorry for all the negativity and skepticism but we have seen this many times before.

I find it hard to believe though that SS sets about "punishing" authors for no good reason.

I agree - that would be a huge waste of resources for no benefit.  SS is there to make money and I can't believe they would go to the trouble of altering the search search rankings of a contributor for deleting less than 3% of their portfolio.  If your sales are down it is probably coincidental and reflective of the general drop that everyone has been noticing.  October used to be one of the best months of the year but that no longer holds.

I just looked at their contributor FAQ and it says they pay 30% - the same percent as with an Alamy distributor sale.

Thanks for sharing your experiences.  Based on your actual results and their $100 minimum payout I'm not convinced it's worth the extra hassle, but will wait to see if you get a better return in the future.  Thanks again for sharing and providing the info.

And competition from free sites. I see more and more businesses using photos from free photo sites for their social media every day. That's killing our sub sales.

That.  And not just social media, I see lots of news feeds using images from flickr, etc., that used to get them from stock agencies.  Why anyone would go to the trouble to make, keyword and upload images to be used for free I can't imagine and yet there are millions of them.  Of course most are low quality but some are quite good and the end users don't seem to notice or care as long as they don't have to pay.  Very frustrating.

Quote from: sgoodwin4813 on September 12, 2017, 20:19

I don't understand these cryptocurrencies - can they be converted into real money?  if you get credits that you can't actually spend for anything useful then it is no better than the badges and points you get for writing Tripadvisor reviews.  If you can't cash them out then I just don't see the point.

Yes they can and with the benefit of hindsight I should have bought some but I'm not about to now. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/sep/12/cryptocurrency-investors-bitcoin-could-lose-money-fca-warns

Here's a quote from that Guardian article,
"In a long list of warnings, the regulator said ICOs were almost completely unregulated, offered no investor protection, were subject to extreme price volatility, and had the potential for fraud."
But other than that they are great!  I think I'll pass - plenty of other ways to lose money already.

Wow, Mantis pretty well summed it up.  Unfortunately, I think the negativity is realistic.  If you had been here eight or ten years ago you would have seen lots of optimism and help for newbies but as competition has become tougher and agencies have tightened the screws on commissions all the optimists have moved on to better pastures, drunk themselves to death or become the hardened, negative realists you see today for all the reasons Mantis so elegantly provided.  More and harder work for less money will do that.  Welcome to the club!

Have they even reported July sales yet?  The last report I have on ESP is dated July 1st for June sales, but so far nothing about what happened in July even though those are supposed to be reported by the 20th or so aren't they?  It's getting to be ridiculous even for iStock.

Quote from: sgoodwin4813 on August 24, 2017, 13:37

Quote from: PaulieWalnuts on August 24, 2017, 12:13

Quote from: sgoodwin4813 on August 24, 2017, 08:22

Quote from: PaulieWalnuts on August 24, 2017, 07:20

You called out Fox. Do you think CNN isn't biased? They all are.

The difference isn't bias, it's in the truth - CNN doesn't make up complete lies like they do at Fox.  Reporting what is happening, even with a bias, is not the same as making up propaganda, which is what is they do at Fox (and has been verified many times).  To equate the two is ridiculous.

Liberal news type of headline - White man kills black honor student
Conservative news type of headline -  Black man killed while assaulting white man

These both could be the same incident, the truth and based on fact. The bias is what facts are chosen to be reported or ignored. And again you keep pointing out Fox and drawing the division line. Have you not seen any of the CNN antics? Or like the news do you only choose to point out information that supports your side of the division line?

As fas as I know CNN has never promoted a lie as fact - Fox has on numerous occasions.  That goes beyond bias to fabrication.  Bias in reporting is one thing, making up lies and becoming a news maker rather than reporting what happened is something else entirely.

Of course. CNN would never lie to do anything shady. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/28/retracted-cnn-story-a-boon-for-president-at-war-with-media.html

Oh, please, get over it.  There was a problem with a minor CNN story that was never widely reported and they immediately took action to retract the story and the involved people resigned.  A mistake that was quickly corrected, which shows the integrity of the organization.

In contrast, Fox has completely and deliberately fabricated numerous main stories, does not retract them at all or only after a very long time and the people who made up the "facts" are still with them.  One organization has integrity and the other doesn't - there is no comparison at all.

Nobody is cheering iS or happy with the current RPDL, just pointing out that, even with the very low commission amounts, RPDL is better than with most other agencies.

What has really killed commissions is the whole subscription system, where individual images no longer have any real value other than as part of a huge collection.  And of course modern cameras that make it relatively easy to take decent images at a low price point, lowering the barrier to entry.  Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like the subscription system will change any time soon and as agencies compete on price contributors will get the shaft.  It was a good ride while it lasted but the wave is rapidly running out.