Something I don't quite understand:

Here's an agency selling our images for 3-digit $ amounts. And they pay 70% of that to the artist. No subscriptions, no penny sales. No insane, uncomprehensible rejections. No closed club for only the chosen few.

And most of what I read here is doubts, complaints, discussion on watermarks...
And the majority keeps uploading to Istock for 15% - 20%, receiving pennies for sale. Or to shutterstock for (at most) 30% and RPD between $0,25 and maybe $1. Or dreamstime where all you still get is $0,35 subs. Or to 123RF who pays as little as $0,21 per sub sale. Or...
The list goes on and on.

Why not give it a try, upload all your new work on 500px and wait a few months before uploading elsewhere? Give them an advantage.

You can still upload to all the micros later. I read a lot that new images don't sell on all the micros as they used to (and I experience the same with my uploads), so it does not seem to be a big loss.

If enough people would do like that, maybe something would change in this industry...

All good points.  Thinking about it.  I'd just like to know whether they're selling 'stock', or 'art', or both. It makes a difference, for example in keywording and descriptions, and it would be nice to have a strategy if we're going to spend the time uploading.

Quote from: stockastic on February 12, 2016, 19:28

Quote from: Zero Talent on February 12, 2016, 18:41

Quote from: stockastic on February 12, 2016, 18:18

... because 1 guy said he made some big sales. Unfortunately he won't tell us what kind of photos they were...

I didn't just say it, I showed examples.

But hey, feel free to feel miserable.
And after all, why would I encourage competition?
As I said, the only reason I shared my experience with this comunity was to show an example of an agency who does things differently, in a positive way. An agency who deserves encouragements.
Who is smart enough to listen, listens.

But if you only prefer doom and gloom stories, I sincerely apologize.

I must have missed something.  All I remember seeing was your post saying "I'm sorry, I can't do that without losing my anonymity. I hope you'll understand."

You missed the screen shot of the sale announcement email, indeed. I'm not just "saying". These large sales are real.

Sent from my SM-N910T using Tapatalk

All I saw was the announcement that you'd made $175 on a sale.  Nothing about the actual photo. 
I don't doubt that the sale occurred, I'm trying to figure out if 500px is selling 'stock' or 'art'.

I am still trying to figure out 500px... I upload mostly stuff that I do for fine art prints, since from community point of view this what people like and expect from this site. I have a following of more than 4,500 and get a lot of likes on some images. However, I've been told that from the sales point of view they need people and business images (like any stock agency), but then what interest those would be to the community? I have those in my portfolio too but it somehow feels wrong to upload them to 500px. I wish they had an option to submit images to 500prime only, why would I showcase images of people having a business meeting. Who wants to see that?

I don't get it either.   I think they've changed course a couple of times and now they don't have a clear identity or direction. Originally, they sold prints, which made sense for 'art' photos.  But they dropped prints. So why would I upload my best work if I can't even sell a print?  And like you say - who's interested in 'stock' photos?

It's a lot of work to upload hundreds of photos - especially if, like me, you only have 6mbs upstream.  Before I do that I need a pretty good idea of what the site is about and what my chances might be.   Thanks for refreshing my memory - I now remember going through this with 500px before and deciding it wasn't quite making sense.   I hope it actually does, though, and someone can explain why.

A lot of excitement in this thread in the last few days - because 1 guy said he made some big sales. Unfortunately he won't tell us what kind of photos they were...

If I remember right, their previews are extremely large, and that's one reason I didn't go ahead with them.   

People shouldn't worry about how many images are being added. It's something people can't control. We're all contributors and we're all submitting images, so we're all part of it.

Worry about what we can control, our own images, and our own portfolios. Even with the new images added, I haven't seen any dilution in sales. If the SS search engine is Eye of Sauron, then your images need to be one ring to rule them all.

Hmmm.  In the end, the One Ring was thrown into Sauron's huge volcanic inferno and destroyed...

I lost interest in 500px when they hired the guy from IS as their new top dog.  I figured its just a matter of time before the start the 'exciting announcements' and didn't want to waste my time uploading hundreds of photos with so much doubt about the future. 

Note that the A7rII isn't a DSLR. 

A big part of the problem is, we can't even understand the 'model'.  I see a thread about 'the next crook', read a dozen posts, and can't even figure out what this new site is doing. Something about scraping supposedly 'free' images from other sites, or maybe via an API, or maybe they're submitted by 'designers', and they're attributed, or not, or they're free, or they're paying .001 cent per download, and they're responsible for plagiarism, or they're not, and someone demanded Photaki take down their images, and they said they would, but they didn't, or maybe they did but they showed up again.

The way these 'redistributors' win is by wearing us down.   Bottom line, DMCA puts the responsibility on the victim, and nobody has the time to run down all the possible infringements on the planet, or figure out the latest convoluted 'business model' which seems to me - on the surface - to be yet another 'model' for making money by reselling the work of other people, thinly repackaged, without their knowledge, while skating just inside some zone of legality, according to someone's interpretation. .

If anyone manages to figure out Freepik, please lay it out for the rest of us. 

This guy is like Martin Shkreli.  He has an answer for everything, but never quite addresses the real questions.   Even if we wanted to play DMCA whack-a-mole, how would we even find out if any of our stuff was there?

25 cents for an 8x10 print is "compensation"?   Maybe... on Bizarro Earth.  On my planet, it's called other things.

I hadn't sold anything on FAA for a while.  But today, I sold 3 sizeable prints and made about $130. 

I'll add CanStock to the list of agencies I'll never have anything to do with.

Good question, they had some of my photos too, for all I know they're selling them on pillows. 

Quote from: stockastic on January 27, 2016, 17:03

Quote from: Pauws99 on January 27, 2016, 16:45

Quote from: stockastic on January 27, 2016, 16:42

Quote from: Pauws99 on January 27, 2016, 13:46

Its called competition I'm afraid you might have to get used to it.....just like the old pros who used macrostock 

One middleman ending up in control of a market isn't 'competition', it's the opposite.

I don't think this is the case according to the poll on the right they have about 30% of the market which is too high but hardly "control"

They aren't quite there yet but the handwriting is on the wall. They don't need 100%; they're already big enough that they control price and no new competitors can come in.  The remaining ones are being steadily squeezed out or sold off.  And don't pin your hopes on Adobe; they're just acquiring stock archives to wring more money out of Photoshop.

Last time I checked Fotolia were accepting new images while I agree there is a danger its a much more open market than in the days of macro sites when a small cabal of suppliers held sway and of course Getty still take full advantage of their near monopoly of historic pics

Yes that's true; I think Adobe probably doesn't really have a plan, this was just some exec's hot idea and who knows where it will end up.   

The internet created new opportunities for photographers: anyone could get into the game and sell photos. But the downside was that a handful of middlemen were able to gain control of the online photo market, keep buyers and producers from ever coming into contact, and totally exploit the situation despite adding little value to the product.  What's needed now is what economists call 'disintermediation' and we call 'cutting out the middleman'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disintermediation

Its called competition I'm afraid you might have to get used to it.....just like the old pros who used macrostock 

One middleman ending up in control of a market isn't 'competition', it's the opposite.