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Messages - wds
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1
Wouldn't it be interesting if there was more innovation in pricing? For example, what if a site allowed you to go to a variable pricing model where-in say the contributor had the option to let an AI optimize the price of each asset so both the contributor and the agency would generate the most revenue?
How about the contributor could set a price floor, but the site could "optimize up" the price. In other words the site could raise the price to make the most money for both the seller as well as the site itself.
2
Wouldn't it be interesting if there was more innovation in pricing? For example, what if a site allowed you to go to a variable pricing model where-in say the contributor had the option to let an AI optimize the price of each asset so both the contributor and the agency would generate the most revenue?
3
« on: February 04, 2025, 22:42 »
Regarding SS, I wonder how much of the variation in sales and income is regional. Maybe SS $$$ have virtually collapsed in the US, but may be doing fine in other parts of the world?...maybe where they spend their advertising dollars?
4
« on: January 31, 2025, 16:56 »
When are the next generations/versions of the various AI tools due?....especially Firefly?
5
« on: January 31, 2025, 15:56 »
Careful. The batch system at istock is not advantageous. When you submit a batch of say five photos only one of those photos will appear in search results. The rest will only be shown as similar images at the bottom of the main image page. Sales will suffer. Best to submit in as small batches as possible, perhaps only one photo per batch.
Not sure what you mean by this? Do you mean if the "five photos" have the same subject and keywords"? I have submitted batches of editorial photos, but they are of different subjects.
6
« on: January 27, 2025, 15:51 »
Jo Ann, I get your points from a "numbers game" point of view (the flood of AI images), but as someone who hasn't really submitted much AI, I haven't seen any kind of drastic earnings reduction from all the new AI content....at least not yet  . I do still believe that a lot of the AI competes with itself in that any given tool tends to generate a lot of the same "look" and kind of competes with itself. I have no data to back this up, just a hunch
7
« on: January 25, 2025, 15:02 »
How and when did you receive a 1099 from Paypal? I have not seen one yet (in US). Is it possible you have to reach a certain dollar amount payout before Paypal issues a 1099?
8
« on: January 24, 2025, 17:39 »
Although I opted in to receive electronic 1099s last year, in today's mail there was a paper 1099 for 2024.
Same information as on the 1099 I downloaded on Wednesday
Interesting. Maybe I will get a hardcopy in the mail.
9
« on: January 23, 2025, 09:33 »
I successfully downloaded mine. Seems correct.
May I ask if you used your Adobe ID to retrieve your info (I used my Adobe ID and was not successful as noted above)?
10
« on: January 22, 2025, 21:41 »
JoAnne, thanks for your input. First, I don't believe I have a record of my Fotolia ID. I think last year I used my Adobe ID and was successful.
I sent a help request as well as emailed Adobe support. Let's see where it goes.
11
« on: January 22, 2025, 18:15 »
Has anyone tried to obtain 2024 1099 forms yet? (not sure if they are available).
I tried the same process I used one year ago (for the 2023 tax form, link:https://236230.invoiceinfo.com/get1099.html) but I got a message: "EIN/TIN/SSN does not match Vendor Number - Please Retry (0)."
I hadn't tried as I just assumed they wouldn't be there yet. But after reading your note I did and was successful in getting the 2024 1099
As I had noted last year, for my "vendor number" I have to put in a leading zero as it's too few digits (4).
The whole settup is terrible - it should be linked from the contributor account interface not some random web page. And when last year I couldn't access it, I never got a reply to my request for support (I figured out the leading zero on my own).
Hmmm. I keep getting the error "EIN/TIN/SSN does not match Vendor Number - Please Retry (0)." Joanne, where exactly did you put in a "leading zero"? I tried putting it in front of my vendor number and I still get an error: "EIN/TIN/SSN does not match Vendor Number - Please Retry (0)." All my info matches the info on last years 1099.
12
« on: January 22, 2025, 14:39 »
Has anyone tried to obtain 2024 1099 forms yet? (not sure if they are available).
I tried the same process I used one year ago (for the 2023 tax form, link:https://236230.invoiceinfo.com/get1099.html) but I got a message: "EIN/TIN/SSN does not match Vendor Number - Please Retry (0)."
Help?
13
« on: January 17, 2025, 16:43 »
my current plan expires February 19th.
the year before,my plan expired in April,I requested the code in advance in 2024 in February,and for 2 months I had 2 identical plans that were going on their own,with even double the generative credits available because they were running 2 identical plans at the same time,the old one which expired in April 2024 and the new one which expired in February 2025.
so no,from my experience it is possible that 2 identical plans with different deadlines are running at the same time.
now I don't know if they updated this or what,everything is possible,also because now each plan has a set number of generative credits.
However,I wait until the last day of the current plan that is still valid before requesting the new one.
If your plan expires in October,it's probably best to redeem the new one a couple of months before at least.
Of course,it would be useful to know if these free codes have an expiration date and what it is,because for example I could also think about taking a break and maybe starting again in a few months and requesting the new plan when I need it,but it is not known whether they must be requested in 6 months or a year or when.
This is very clear, and this is exactly what I experienced. And so did mike123.
It can be confusing. Reading the post with the Adobe explanation insert may have jogged my memory a bit. I think what may have happened in my case last year is that the name/designation of the so called "Photography Plan" changed in some way which therefore triggered the Adobe plan management software to "think" that the new code was for a different style of "Photography" plan than my (at that time) current "Photography Plan" and that triggered it to set up a parallel plan (it thought the plans were different, even though they were both the "Photography Plan"). Very confusing. I think I will call up support before I redeem to get this years view.
14
« on: January 17, 2025, 13:57 »
What is the recommended time that we take advantage of the offer? Last year I waited till my current subscription was close to running out and I ran into a bunch of issues (which were resolved after a lot of back and forth with Adobe support....I don't want to go through that again).
So specifically, if we still have many months before our current subscription expires, is it okay if we take advantage of the offer immediately (assuming the new plan would begin when our current plan expires, not earlier), or should we wait till we near the expiration of our current plan?
Thanks.
I still have this question: My current plan extends until October 2025. If I redeem my code immediately, will it automatically extend until October 2026?...or is it better I wait till the October deadline approaches? (I waited last year and had all kinds of problems....specifically, instead of extending the plan, it started a second new plan subscription.)
the plan begins the moment you request the code,a different plan.
my old plan will expire in February and I will redeem the new code one day earlier,of course October is far away,it's possible that the blue bar is still there,probably yes,but I can't say for sure.
Are you sure? I don't think it used to (2+ years ago) work that way. The system was smart enough to tack on the new time at the end of your current plan.
15
« on: January 17, 2025, 10:56 »
What is the recommended time that we take advantage of the offer? Last year I waited till my current subscription was close to running out and I ran into a bunch of issues (which were resolved after a lot of back and forth with Adobe support....I don't want to go through that again).
So specifically, if we still have many months before our current subscription expires, is it okay if we take advantage of the offer immediately (assuming the new plan would begin when our current plan expires, not earlier), or should we wait till we near the expiration of our current plan?
Thanks.
I still have this question: My current plan extends until October 2025. If I redeem my code immediately, will it automatically extend until October 2026?...or is it better I wait till the October deadline approaches? (I waited last year and had all kinds of problems....specifically, instead of extending the plan, it started a second new plan subscription.)
16
« on: January 16, 2025, 11:30 »
What is the recommended time that we take advantage of the offer? Last year I waited till my current subscription was close to running out and I ran into a bunch of issues (which were resolved after a lot of back and forth with Adobe support....I don't want to go through that again).
So specifically, if we still have many months before our current subscription expires, is it okay if we take advantage of the offer immediately (assuming the new plan would begin when our current plan expires, not earlier), or should we wait till we near the expiration of our current plan?
Thanks.
17
« on: January 14, 2025, 17:31 »
Let's hope so. The "race to the bottom" has gotten everyone (contributors and agencies) in trouble.
18
« on: January 14, 2025, 09:11 »
Regarding the abundance of AI in the search results. I would think that is largely do to the unending flood of AI submissions....new items always start out high in the search. It would be an interesting stat to see the rate of new AI assets vs. the rate of new actual photo assets introduced into the collection.
19
« on: January 07, 2025, 22:54 »
So as an example, SS bought POND5 a while ago.
- Did an SS memberships allow access to POND5 assets? - Did POND5 memberships allow access to SS assets?
- What exactly happened with that merger? - Was it just a way to consolidate back-end services, reduce commissions, and therefore increase profit? - What was different from the customer viewpoint as result of that takeover?
20
« on: January 07, 2025, 10:25 »
I have been a contributor to both, but my portfolio on SSTK is somewhat larger, both because iStock is pickier, and I have not bothered to upload as much there, as it is more trouble.
That seems to go even more for others, as apparently the total number of files at SSTK is more than double what it is at iStock: https://photutorial.com/shutterstock-vs-istock/#shutterstock-has-2-times-more-content-but-i-stock-is-more-curated
iStock has taken a more restrictive view of what is acceptable, based on no known legal principles of IP. For example, I have found that they have zero tolerance for interior shots for editorial, even of public buildings where photography is permitted.
It will be interesting to see how they handle that, and whether they will cull the SSTK portfolio to eliminate images that iStock would not have accepted.
Yes, iS is much more restrictive on Editorial than SS. However, I would be surprised if they cut off revenue from SS Editorial images that iS wouldn't normally accept...time will tell.
21
« on: January 07, 2025, 09:44 »
I kind of hope this could be a good thing. Getty could stop the price race to the bottom, as I think they would want to improve their profit margin and they'd only have Adobe as the main big competitor, which for now doesn't complete on price.
You believe Getty would stop that race to the bottom that they started in first place?
Yes I do.
As far as I know iStock started the race, Getty just bought them later on. Recently Shutterstock was leading the race to the bottom. I disregard bottom feeders like Freepik, they don't have a large enough market share to matter much.
No business wants to reduce their prices, as that reduces their profit. They only do it to compete for market share. Now with only two big players in the market (Getty and Adobe) and Adobe not reducing their prices for some time (as far as I know), Getty might be actually able to raise their lowest price tiers and probably still be cheaper than Adobe. I don't know their exact numbers, so I can't be sure - that's just common business sense.
Obviously Getty won't increase percentage share for contributors. But if they increase their prices, contributors will still get more money.
Interesting theory! Could it be that with only a few large players, said players will be able to raise their prices?!
22
« on: January 07, 2025, 09:32 »
Does that mean they will continue operating their individual platforms to maintain their existing customer bases and revenue streams?
That's a good question! Also, SS has a fairly liberal acceptance policy for Editorial whereas iS does not. Hopefully they won't become more restrictive in that regard. If they are going to consolidate relative to IT and such, it might imply that ultimately the two microstock platforms will merge into one.
23
« on: January 04, 2025, 09:58 »
I believe SS was a large factor in the "race to the bottom" regarding pricing? I am not sorry to see them "go".
24
« on: January 04, 2025, 08:09 »
I wonder if the agencies are regretting their "race to the bottom" approach with pricing?
25
« on: January 03, 2025, 13:43 »
My guess is that a lot costumers won't renew their AS subscription for 2025 because of AI pollution. If you do a search for classic stock photos at latest uploads. AS ist far behind istock or Shutterstock. At AdobeStock someone mostly find AI images at latest upload search. So lot of the latest trendy (non AI) images are not available at AdobeStock. I guess subscription and EL sales will increase at istock and Shutterstock this year.
Can't you just filter out AI imagery when you do a search?
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