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General Stock Discussion / We can limit the power of big agencies by uploading to middle-tier agencies
« on: December 18, 2020, 05:10 »
Hi all,
A shower thought: the recent decrease of contributors' royalties on Shutterstock was partly possible from SS's point of view because they know that many contributors cannot delete their portfolio there, SS's earnings being a large percentage of their monthly earnings.
Why this happened?
As a contributor, I was uploading my content mostly to the top tier agencies, thinking that uploading to middle tier agencies was a waste of time.
Actually I was wrong: by doing so, I was putting all the power to 3-4 agencies, because they were the only ones to get fresh content, hence being able to attract more customers and then more contributors.
This empowering wheel (uploading to top tier agencies > top tier agencies getting more customers > top tier agencies selling more > top tier agencies attracting even more contributors compared to middle-tier agencies) made a few agencies have the power to decide what the contributors should earn.
Of course, it's not the only factor contributing to an agency's success (their commercial team, quality of search engine, distribution network and agreements, ...) are also very important.
If I upload to more middle-tier agencies, I give the chance to more market share, and thus less power in the arms of a single agency...
Sounds basic and logical, but it's only recently that I'm really aware of it.
A shower thought: the recent decrease of contributors' royalties on Shutterstock was partly possible from SS's point of view because they know that many contributors cannot delete their portfolio there, SS's earnings being a large percentage of their monthly earnings.
Why this happened?
As a contributor, I was uploading my content mostly to the top tier agencies, thinking that uploading to middle tier agencies was a waste of time.
Actually I was wrong: by doing so, I was putting all the power to 3-4 agencies, because they were the only ones to get fresh content, hence being able to attract more customers and then more contributors.
This empowering wheel (uploading to top tier agencies > top tier agencies getting more customers > top tier agencies selling more > top tier agencies attracting even more contributors compared to middle-tier agencies) made a few agencies have the power to decide what the contributors should earn.
Of course, it's not the only factor contributing to an agency's success (their commercial team, quality of search engine, distribution network and agreements, ...) are also very important.
If I upload to more middle-tier agencies, I give the chance to more market share, and thus less power in the arms of a single agency...
Sounds basic and logical, but it's only recently that I'm really aware of it.
