Quote from: blvdone on March 06, 2021, 11:19

Quote from: Horizon on March 06, 2021, 09:10

This little growth is the contributors money that went straight down their pockets! nothing else. So whats next? how are they going to maintain their growth? by stealing from us yet again and again and again??

Definitely the major part of their profit growth came from lowering our pay.  They exactly knew what they were trying to do.

No it didn't.
You do realise that the lowered rates did not start until January 1st don't you? So the results of that won't be reported until the end of Q1 in 2021 - so all of the increased profits, etc are the results of actions taken other than cutting commission rates.

Can we expect your quantity of posts to decrease once your suspension is lifted on the SS forums? And how long have we got left to go... just out of interest?

The situation with Shutterstock is far from unique. This is just the latest example (and a small one at that) of the basic problem that plagues an economy based on the stock market. Investors demand increased profit year over year which is a physical impossibility. To make just the same massive profits as the previous year is seen as a failure. So they only way to achieve this constant growth, even in the short term, is to continuously cut costs. Of course they never think to cut executive salaries, so the only thing left is the low level employees.

This is why all of North America's manufacturing jobs started moving to Asia in the 1980's, followed quickly by customer service, printing, etc. The result was massive profit increases for company owners and investors but the slow erosion and evenutually complete destruction of the middle class. The fact that there was an immediate drop in the quality of the goods produced and that well-paid, skilled workers were replaced by sweat shops with appalling human rights abuses, including child labour and virtual slavery, were ignored in the race for ever-higher shareholder profits.

This is, of course, a short-sighted business plan, because when no-one has a job, who will buy the goods and services? Which is why Philip Morris, Mcdonalds, Walmart, etc. are trying to get kids around the world hooked on cigarrettes, fast food, and cheap disposable goods.

Time to break out the torches and pitchforks.

Quote from: Justanotherphotographer on March 05, 2021, 08:23

They are going to see an epic first quarter thanks to the reset and lower payments to contributors generally.

Longer term I don't think they have a clue what the next step will be. Share holders are going to want to see more growth and they are in a tail spin.

Revenue increases 2% in 2020 and  3% in 2019 compared to 11.9% in 2018 and 12.7% in 2017. They are in a tail spin and instead of reacting by coming up with innovative products they simply put their hands in our pockets and filled theirs.

I agree, recent actions by Shutterstock are indicative of a company in trouble and reacting in panic. At best, unsustainable, at worst a concrete wall dead ahead.

As a side note, it may not be entirely his fault. One of the more robust findings in psychology is that when people get too much money they act more like what we would colloquially call f***ing a**holes. Here�s a couple of links but the phenomenon has been demonstrated in loads of studies in many different ways.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797610387613

https://www.businessinsider.com/ted-talk-monopoly-makes-people-mean-2014-8?r=US&IR=T