Some progress, got no responses to the emails or contact form i decided to put it in public on Twitter.  Received a response within hours.  Today ive received a mail saying its being moved off Plus.

So for those of you getting no joy at all from them, it seems the public shaming tactic works.

anyone still having images in their PLUS collection deserves even less then 0.03

Maybe but some of us have been trying for weeks to get the moved or close account and receiving no reply.  And havent had the 4-5 hours it'll take to do each page individually yet.

Let me know if you get a response and how you contacted them.

Theyve failed to respond to any of my 4 requests to opt out.

I would say that resubmit always goes to human reviewer, but the first attempt... who knows. Basically all landscape images from full frame camera are rejected for focus (but they are just detailed - it seems that some AI does not understand grass straws and consider the details as noise). It is much easier to get accepted blurred images (soft corners) from a compact camera than perfectly sharp images from a full frame.

Its been like this for a while - full resolution images at 30-50mp get rejected for focus and noise.  Downsizing that same image to 8MP and it gets accepted.
The AI seems to struggle with smaller pixels when ranking an image for focus.

A week on still no change from them.

Response to my initial mail (a propaganda piece saying how great it was and if i still want to opt out to reply) arrived within 24hrs of contacting them.

My follow up mail saying yes, opt me out still hasnt been replied to.

Looks like they're deliberately delaying or ignoring this.

I think they use Non-Licensable Content as a catchall to bulk reject anything at times.

Ive just had a batch of 75 images all rejected with it.  Images consisted of shots of mountains, beaches, coastline, castles, harbours and lakes.  Drone and Mirrorless.

The images stuck in the review queue for ages then all got rejected at once with it.

Ive sent an email to them saying i need my entire portfolio moved off Plus or can they please delete it.
No reply yet.

I've been away, not logged in for a few weeks and received no email about this account change (the first i noticed was on here) before it was too late to opt out.

Ultimately i'd rather not delete but will do if i cant get a bulk opt out.  123 only earn a few hundred dollars a year so although the cash is "nice" it doesnt make up for the reduction elsewhere as a result of things being free so deletion is better.

Emotions aside, I've crunched some numbers and it's clear that average RPD for clips is on freefall at SS. These are the historical stats from my port at SS (average of $12/download since 2019). Perhaps I'll be "lucky" to be earning $4/download on average from next year. Shouldn't be called RPD anymore, should be called RIP.

Meanwhile, Pond5 is holding steady at an average of $29/download since 2019. Even though volumes are 3x less than SS, average net earnings is 7x more per clip sold. 

I'm not quite seeing that but a huge drop since the resets and subscription nonsense started.

Prior to that my all time average since 2010 was about $24 per download.

Now it varies wildly month to month depending what "special" offers and the algorithms mood.  Varies wildly from $5 to $18 with an average of $12.40

On my sales it seems the random subscription sales mask any reductions due to the level resets.

My P5 average is double SS but sales only about 20% by volume.

I can see this partnership in the future being just one massive subscription site. Thats where all this is heading.

This...

Penny-stock subscription service and a near market monopoly.

When their first approved image of the electric pole outside their residence had been aproved, and made no sales for the first few hours, these luck seekers found new ways. "Show Portfolio !" was a common question to the more experienced. They soon found their images in other portfolios. These luck seekers simply wanted Shutterstock to pay them money so or so, and many more or less creatice fraud attempts were made.

That's exactly how the various SS facebook groups still work.

I *think* the videos that vanished when i submit and never appeared in pending did actually get reviewed.

Same bug now though, submit a video and it never appears in pending.  Images do.

That's pretty horrific SS behaviour if its as stated and does show they just treat contributors with contempt.

They actively dislike people pointing out fraudulent or suspicious behaviour, even using private methods.

I assume there's no option at all to speak to an actual person or provide them with any form of documentation?

Just worked out my figures and Feb was far worse than i expected.

Download numbers down 25% on last feb and RPD down about 60% despite going through the levels.

Video sales down 50% in terms of volume too.

In total earnings 45% of Feb 21.