Guess who is going to pay for the merge�..

Nothing good for us will came from this merge

I don't understand how there are still people who waste their time uploading images and videos to agencies like this one.

The company where my husband works has already adapted to the new realities, they have cancelled the subscription with one of the most important stock agencies they have worked with for 15 years for another subscription with mid journey for $30.00 per month.
They are saving thousands of dollars a year with this move.

Even at the WSJ they know that AI is destroying what little is left of the stock photography business.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-last-stock-photographers-await-their-fate-under-generative-ai-822d1e6a?mod=hp_minor_pos1

In the case of the company my husband works for, the artificial intelligence has killed all the stock agencies, they have stopped paying the annual subscription with one of the biggest agencies and now pay $30 a month to mid journey where he has also discovered that he can download and use images created by others since none of the images created by mid journey are copyrighted.

Quote from: SpaceStockFootage on March 12, 2024, 07:21

Quote from: Video-StockOrg on March 12, 2024, 05:49

No. I hired someone to make me an original character design...

Were they cheap?

 There is a good saying: "The only way of making money in photography is by selling all your gear."

BINGO!!!!

3000??? How do you write a description and keyword that many if you don't mind me asking?

Some people employ other people to help them to edit and write keywords to the AI images they upload. For example I know a man in India who employs teenagers to do the job in exchange of candies, sodas and cigarettes and he is doing very well. He told me he now uploads more than 2000 AI images a day using different accounts under several family member names.

I would say 5 to max 7 years is a realistic scenario where only the big agencies like Adobe Stock, Getty / Istock, Alamy, etc. and of course agencies with editorial content will survive.
Perhaps small very specialized agencies (food, architecture, etc.) will survive by license supplying AI model developers.
All others are either too unknown, poorly diversified or have no recognizable long-term strategic orientation. They will disappear.

3 years are to short to see large market changes because of current AI technological barriers. With the exponential technical development, the marketing and thus the awareness of AI models will increase significantly the following coming years. In addition, many users most likely have medium-term plans for stock licensing, so they won't switch next year. I think we will see a strong shift for the first time in 3 years, when image generation will be possible in real time.

In my opinion, there is a scenario in which the big stock agencies could remain profitable in the long term without ending up like Shitterstock as a pure data supplier for AI model developers.
You would need to develop your own AI assistant that allows prompting that combines an AI model with stock or customer's own photos using img2img with inpainting / outpainting.
This would have the advantage of being able to fulfill a wide broad of customer wishes through a high degree of flexibility by using the available high res photos with very low image errors.
You have to get away from the rigid old concept of a pure image database.
I have a design suite platform like Canvas in my mind but with focus on images, 3d and videos.

Let's take the example of a small car repair shop that wants to create a customer offer for cheap winter tire and oil changes as an advertisement for Christmas.
The marketing manager has an in oil covered smiling Santa in mind who is changing the tires in the car shop garage.
He could either take his own photo of his own garage and then pick out a Santa and integrate it into the photo in real time using an inpaint command, or he could use a prompt command to display a garage and a Santa separately, pick out suitable ones and then merge them into one picture. He could leave copy space free for text or his own logo, etc. 

The advantage would be the extremely high individual flexibility in comparison to current AI image generators.
Agencies need to integrate AI in a clever way.
There is no way around it. They have to invest money to remain profitable in the long term. And only the big ones can do that.
I would bet heavily on Adobe Stock to expand in this direction.
They actually have a lot of expertise in this area with their software design suite.
So integrating stock photos into Photoshop was a smart first step. But Photoshop is too complex for the normal user so they have to replace it with an AI assistant.

People will need no agencies for that, it will be free applications available that will do everything for free. SS is charging a customer for something the customer can get for free in many applications today. Imagine in one or two years.
SS is a sinking boat like most of today available agencies.

Three to five years, we'll be down to the last of the survivors. Adobe, iStock, SS and Alamy. Each of those has a big corporation backing them, while the stand alone agencies will be drowning without a life jacket or anyone to rescue them.
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They will squeeze more and more the contributors, they will drop the prices, they will introduce advertising in their pages etc etc etc they will finally die drowned without a life jacket or anyone to rescue them.

I know a person in India who has hired 12 year old kids from a school to generate AI images, add keywords and upload them to Adobe. He manages 16 different accounts using names of family members and is making thousands of dollars. He told me that he uploads over 1000 images a day and is trying to expand his business to upload at least 3000 images a day.

Between 200-300 a day to have a decent amount of earnings by the end of the month

I guess Yuri will be aware of how hard generative IA is going to hit his business.