if anyone is thinking of investing in new gear solely for microstock, save your money.  Microstock simply isn't profitable enough for the individual photographer to invest in all new gear.

If, on the other hand, you really want new gear and don't care if microstock will return your purchase price, go for it.  There are a lot of amazing mirrorless cameras out there right now.  It's a fun tine to be a photographer.

IMHO.

I think the biggest reason for the drop in agency sales is simple: there is a worldwide glut of free digital imagery on just about every subject you can imagine.  Google (and other search engines) makes all these images easy to find and download, copyrighted or not.  There is so much theft of "protected" material on Google alone, that tracking it down and protecting one's copyrights becomes virtually impossible.  With so much "free" material so easy to find and download, much of it on social media, is it any wonder pay sites are having a hard time competing for paying customers?

Adobe, Dreamstime, and Alamy - the last three sites to which I contribute - all have free sections (I refuse to offer any of my work in these areas), and all offer free images as an enticement for new subscribers.  And the subscription model itself dramatically lowered payouts to contributors.  We all thought we could maintain earnings with volume sales, but volume sales are down.  See paragraph above.

Shutterstock shot itself in the foot by lowering standards and accepting millions of, essentially, duplicate images and cell phone pictures (allowing anyone with a cell phone and a modicum of knowledge on how to use it to become stock photographers) .  It also doesn't help that their database of images is so large it's too costly to curate and audit to weed out stolen images, many of which are taken from free sites or downloaded from Google, Flickr, IG or other social media.  At least two pending lawsuits against SS speak to this latter issue.

The bottom line is this: it's all about supply and demand.  There are simply too many high quality images freely available online right now - whether offered free or easily stolen - and too many agency photos of vastly varying quality (from good to gawd-awful) chasing too few dollars.  Did helping a few "noobs" along the way contribute to this mess?  Sure.  But that doesn't even begin to explain all the other people out there offering perfectly good work for free or seeing it stolen for use by end users and other unethical stock contributors.

What's the answer?  The amount of free competition is forcing the closure and/or mergers of smaller stock agencies with larger ones.  We are now getting to the point where one or two remaining agencies will set the global price for paid imagery while competing with an increasing glut of free content.  This will not end well for the individual contributor, who will be forced to accept hobbyist pay for professional work if they wish to stay in this industry going forward. 

In short, there is no good ending for professional photographers in this business; just a continued erosion of earnings until everyone reaches their own point of diminished returns, rendering it all simply not worth doing anymore.

Just my $.02.

Quote"How many images do you have"! Then they flip and criticize when someone went with that plan and they criticize and say... well how many are similar?

The OP wasn't the first to be criticized for similars.  Remember white 3D box specialist?  Remember Turkish flag guy with their former leader on it?

Shutterstock would nix some users for 2 similars while letting others dump entire cards of high-speed burst images on the system.  Shutterstock was really the problem because their "standards" would not only allow such cases, but stolen images, too.  How many stolen images are still being reported now, even here? 

I think there's a lot of selective amnesia going on here.  I'll just leave it at that. 

QuoteIt won't be too long before penny royalties are common.

When that day comes, I'm done with stock photography.  There's simply no point chasing pennies with dollars.

QuoteOtherwise all the people who abandoned Shutterstock after their royalty cut would instantly leave Pond5 as well.

Count me as one of them.  My port at Pond 5 was officially closed today.  It's not that I hated being at P5, it's that I didn't want Oringer and his lackeys getting their hands on my content through Pond 5.  I want nothing more to do with Shitterstock and if P5 is part of that company now, then I want nothing to do with Pond 5, either.  Yes, royalty cuts will continue to come for Shutterstock and P5.  That's Shiterstock's business model: take a contributor's or non-contributor's content (in the case of recently posted lawsuits) and screw them.

QuoteApparently Stan Pavlovsky has resigned as CEO. The statement is careful to note that it was a voluntary resignation...

If I had done as much damage to the Shutterstock brand by pissing off contributors and having to defend the company from copyright infringement lawsuits, I'd quit, too.  I wonder if it was his brilliant idea to shaft contributors there and drive a lot of professional content creators into the arms of Adobe. 

1 Canon 5D MkIV with EF16-35 f/4, Sigma 24-105 Art, Tamron 70-200 f/2.8, EF100-400L MkII, Sigma 150-600 Sports.
2 Canon R5s with EF-RF adapters, RF-24-105 f/4, RF 24-240, RF 70-200 f/4 (sharpest lens of all of these on the list), RF 100-500L.
1 Nikon D5200 with 16-35 f/4, 50mm 1.8, Tamron 70-200 f/2.8 G2, Tamron 18-400, Nikkor 200-500 f/5.6.
2 Nikon D500s with lenses noted above.
1 Nikon Z 7II with Z 24-200 and FTZ adapter.
2 Sony A6500s (primarily underwater work) with Sigma 16mm C, Sigma 30mm C, Sony 50mm f/2.8 macro, Sony 90mm f/2.8 macro, Tamron 18-300.

I still use them all (except the D5200).  And I still have 2 EOS film cameras from back in the day: 630 and 650.  I can never bring myself to sell my older gear, so I use it when the mood strikes me, instead.  I'm actually thinking of getting another Z 7II.  And yes, I own all these because I can.

My favorite "walk around" combos are the Z 7II with Z24-200, R5 with 24-105, Sony A6500 with Tamron 18-300.  All of these cameras and lens combos have produced stock images.

It looks like 2021 was a bumper crop year for suits against Shutterstock.

QuoteFor an abo microstock agency i can't see any reason to take stolen images seriously.
These images (work) could be also available at free images site.
So what ?

Ever work in a company that has an office refrigerator?  I did.  People would put food and drinks in there all the time only to find it missing later in the day.  One day, I heard one co-worker ask another, "Did you take my diet coke?"  The thief replied, "I'm sorry.  I didn't know it was yours."  That "excuse" pissed me off for two reasons.  The first, because the thief admitted stealing his co-worker's drink.  But when I heard his "apology", I wanted to interject, "But you KNEW it wasn't yours, so why did you take it?"

Let's call copyright infringement what it is: theft.  Once upon a time, possessing and selling stolen property was a crime in its own right.  It doesn't matter if the actual copyright holder wants to display his/her images on a free site or Flickr: it's completely irrelevant what a copyright holder does with their images.  What is patently illegal is for someone else or a company, like Shutterstock, to distribute or sell images that neither have the permission to possess or sell, or have the copyrights to.  I don't care what Shutterstock's defense is: they KNEW at least after the first cease and desist order, the images were not licensed for sale by them.  So I would ask them the same thing I would've asked that co-worker: you KNEW the images weren't yours to sell, so why did you sell them? 

If people don't protect their copyrights, then they lose them.  The plaintiff in this case is protecting his right to sell, distribute, and display his images as HE sees fit.  He should be applauded.  If Shutterstock loses this case, it's a win for all of us. IMHO.

All I can say is that I am so glad to be out of Shutterstock. 

QuoteThe suit mentions the Shutterstock forums being full of posts about stolen work - not any more

Makes me wonder if that wasn't one of the reasons the forum went bye-bye.  Too much potential plaintiff material being posted there. 

The case is still pending.  I read most of the 66 pages of the original filing.  The evidence there presented by the plaintiff is overwhelming. 

Just a head's up: Shutterstock is being sued for major copyright infringement.  You can read the case filing here:

https://ia801802.us.archive.org/15/items/gov.uscourts.mnd.192365/gov.uscourts.mnd.192365.1.0.pdf