basti - I totally agree that microstock heavily eroded prices in some areas of photography, but the REALITY is that it is here - it is changing the industury and it will NOT be stopped.  As professional photographers, we MUST work to keep our RM QUALITY images separate from the ones we upload on microstock.  I have had numerous RM images licensed - many for individual ad campaigns bringing in mid 5 figures per image over the duration of the campaign.  For those campaigns the client WANTED an image that was UNIQUE and certainly not over-used.  It does surprise me however that the ms sites DO contain many VERY HIGH QUALITY production value images.  As a former ad agency owner - I can also tell you that when iStock came online - we utilized the images available for our COMPS to present a campaign with a real photo in the comp. Many times the client said "Don't reshoot - use the image that is available NOW. We were able to utilize images from their library for clients who were not as concerned about using an image that hasn't been used/seen before as they were about lowering overall production costs.  They saved money by using RF images and in many cases - we made more money as well.  And another payoff was SPEED to get a client approved campaign in use.  I think we can all agree that the industry really started changing with the introduction of Photodisc RF images.  I smile whenever I walk by our in-house library of over 300 RF CD's that we paid between $100 and $200 per disc - at the time an INCREDIBLE deal.  It was worth it in many cases to buy the $200 disc for the use of ONE image on the disc.

I suppose the real thing we have to do is LEARN to embrace the industry opportunities and changes - and at the same time figure out how to evolve our own businesses and still stay in business.