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Messages - trevlan

Pages: [1]
1
General Stock Discussion / Re: So where are we at now?
« on: July 01, 2020, 09:44 »
Don't be fooled.
It seems that Shutterstock is showing images of disabled accounts longer than they used to after they have been disabled. They could now be manipulating the image numbers too.
They changed their system so that the "no 10cents" avatar cannot be shown as you may know, and they are working hard to disguise as if everything-is-normal on the surface..

They are trying to discourage protesters and break our spirit.

You really don't know if an image has been deleted or disabled until you actually buy them.

It seems that quite massive amounts of well selling Russian, Czechoslovakian contributor's illustrations have been disabled but they look as if they are still on sale.

What people are replying above is right. Do what you can. 
The situation is different for each person.  In the end it will all add up.
Personally I think that vector based illustrators have been hit uncomparably the hardest because they are subscription-optimized merchandise and don't often get ODs.
Especially people that were making around $2K a month and were professional microstockers. Now they can't live on it anymore. (critical situation). But they can't throw away the remaining earnings instantly now either. (disable images or close accounts, that is.) Because they still need that income.
And that's probably why shutterstock chose this timing. Which was  in the middle of a pandemic. Because it was the least likely timing to lose money-making contributors. The most vulnerable timing. Bad economy, no jobs, other agencies reviewing processes were halting or really slow. Sales down too. And contributors will likely be quieter because they are too caught up with everyday life. Really evil.
.
Most likely strategy of those contributors would be to not upload , and meanwhile concentrate on making a foothold on other stock agencies and then taking good images first off Shutterstock. It's going to be a long process but it must be done. If you leave your good images at Shutterstock, they will dominate other stock agencies at a lower price. (which will mean Shutterstocks pricing will become the de facto standard. A  disaster for the industry)

Now with the new earnings structure Shutterstock can go low as never before.
Now they can dump our images to an new breed of strategic partners and have nothing to lose .  They already have the merchandise, the platform (the API),
and one million contributors over many nationalities and languages which is less likely to bundle up,
and they NOW have secured the absolute low cost for the images.

No doubt they have been planning this for a long time.
So it's not going to be reversed easily or in a short amount of time. 
Of Course they saw the protest coming.
They were prepared and they probably had calculated estimations of how many contributors at what earnings level would close their accounts and break off.

It has been a month since the earnings structure change, and some people are just starting to notice their unusually low earnings from Shutterstock. This is not a short battle. it will be a long one.
Considering  all the consequences above I think we are doing a fairly good job. Were doing good as long as we are providing them with only 10cent class images.  That's what they seemed to want,  and that's what they will get.

2
Shutterstock.com / Re: Mr. Crafty is at it again
« on: June 27, 2020, 19:10 »
Thanks. I got the situation.  They've probably become experts on the privacy setting by now..  ;D

3
Shutterstock.com / Re: Mr. Crafty is at it again
« on: June 27, 2020, 10:23 »
Wow, he deleted his LinkedIn account?  Chairman of a billion dollar company? He is really self destructing his reputation. Amazing Stan Pavlovsky effect. Disruptive indeed.(yes, I saw the youtube clip)

4
Shutterstock.com / Re: Mr. Crafty is at it again
« on: June 24, 2020, 09:59 »

I've looked at my earnings at approximately 1000 dls and 2000 dls this month and my take is like 30% less than before.
I've sold approx. 15% more images (DLs) than the previous month at this point.
And to make the situation even worse, this includes $30 to $70 range single and enhanced sales I got in June. Without them it would be even worse.
Shutterstock took the rest. At six days notice.

Mr. Oringer probably hired a dirty-agenda CEO because he didn't want to do this himself.
The top contributors at Shutterstock are all subscription sales optimized creators. They all are hurt by this change.

Shutterstock, you never had enough OD sales going to make up for our lost revenue to begin with.
Your OD packages are not attractive, because you don't want them to be. (because if OD becomes popular it will permanently hurt subscription sales)

If OD sales were so great, why in the world would you change it so we get more percentage on OD sales. That answers everything.

You're trying to make your contributors think they need to make one of a kind OD quality images to make money like before. In the end you're gonna sell it all for $0.10. Shady business that is. 

So, I understand he feels like 2003 again.
Starting to see profits come in like if it was 2003 again.?


5
Shutterstock.com / Problems Lies Within
« on: June 15, 2020, 09:22 »
Someone mentioned this in the "Shutterstock just became iStock 2.0" thread.
but since it seemed that it wasn't getting enough attention, so  I'll put it up here again .
It's worth looking at even if you have to make a glassdoor account.
(I was able to make a account and read the comments without entering personal job information )

https://www.glassdoor.ca/Reviews/Shutterstock-Reviews-E270840.htm

Especially, the comments from the following dates are worth looking at (Cons).
(I'm not copying the content here because there might be an issue with that.)

April 21, 2020

January 3, 2019

September 17, 2018

August 16, 2018

July 28, 2018

June 5, 2018

Management seems to be bad.
Good people leave fast.

It seems that the Shutterstock even before the CEO change wasn't the company we thought it was.
Real corruption may have started. They have no vision. Abrupt changes .
There is a reason for nobody being able to respond properly at SS.

6
Shutterstock.com / We will not be uploading
« on: June 13, 2020, 07:08 »
I'm currently at level 5 will be level 6.   
Looked at this situation for close to 2 weeks and this is not good.
Really really bad.  
 
In fact, it was so bad, I thought everyone was starting from level 1 this June when I saw the sales numbers coming in.

There is no way on-demand sales are going to make up for the suddenly taken away subscription profit even looking at the past data.
Shutterstock you know that.

Shutterstock, you have always been a subscription based business,
And you promote subscriptions,
and You are THE "subscription" agency.

And that's just what you did.
You've capitalized on the subscription profit.
The profit which should have been going to the creative contributors.  
 
And even more,
the ones who have been attracting buyers and pulling your sales throughout the years are long time specialists in creating subscription-attractive or subscription-optimized images. They know what sells in a subscription base environment.  They've honed their skills for subscription.  
They are the ones that will be hit the hardest. Including me.

Who is going to be rewarded by this?  You?

If you are going to do this the right way Level 1 should start at 35% and 5% increments per level. Even that may be not enough to make up for the lost income. Especially since we get a reset at January 1st.

In the past I have been with really terrible hosting companies, and evil domain registrars, and bad minded companies like Fotolia, but THIS is the WORST TURN OF EVENTS I HAVE EVER ENCOUNTERED . And It is my understanding that the global internet creative community also thinks so.
 
We will not be uploading to Shutterstock anymore.
New images will go elsewhere.
Will probably keep what's already there for a while,  
but eventually will be pulling out our class A images.
We will not leave images which go elsewhere in shutterstock because
we know better not to upload the same material to different agencies. 

The way this was executed is in a different class of "Evil".
And this was a CEO-annoucement material. Not a 6 days before notice in a casual style mail or forum posting material.
 
You killed everyone's motivation.

And you killed your own precious reputation. And in the middle of a pandemic.
 
Shutterstock you're not Facebook, nor Google, nor Apple. 
Go back to the basics.  Go back to the long term perspective of things.

 
And to the fellow contributors.
I have been, and still am a image buyer before I have been a contributor.  Buyers will follow the attractive content. Takes a little time but don't worry about that.





7
Newbie Discussion / Re: why can't I start a new thread?
« on: June 11, 2020, 19:09 »
Thanks didn't know that. :)

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