sorry all, not sure what went wrong... or i guess i know what went wrong but not how it happened.  I THINK it is fixed now...

let me know if you are having problems anywhere.  I hope you got some pics taken while the site was down

In case you didn't see it, shutterstock wrote a nice message in response to all the comments they receive on their price increase.  Their message is here

http://submit.shutterstock.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=37831&start=465

and since it appears that their forum is public i thought i may just as well quote their message here

Quote

We'd like to make a few points in response to this thread before ending the discussion.

On the raise:

The goal of the new payout structure is to reward submitters who, according to the download stats, have contributed the images that our customers go on to license. Our customers appreciate the large total number of images in our library, but they vote every day on which of those images are most valuable to them. It's fair to say that this raise was structured as much by our customers' download histories as it was by Shutterstock management.

Prior to this raise, a new submitter could look forward to only a single 20% payout increase, whereas now they will enjoy a 32% initial increase, followed by the chance for two additional increases down the road. The new payout structure aims to continuously encourage all submitters to improve and enlarge their galleries. We want everyone to work their way up...

There are many ways to contribute to your lifetime earnings total. You can refer buyers or other submitters, you can sell Enhanced License downloads, and you can contribute footage to our growing footage library. The stock footage industry in particular has plenty of growth ahead, as mobile devices and digital advertising become more sophisticated and bandwidth becomes less expensive.

As has been pointed out, your own current earnings rate is not locked until next year. Our hope is that the larger initial raise and the two new subsequent raises will motivate every submitter to improve their quality and increase their gallery size throughout the year. You can earn more money by contributing more high quality content, and when you reach these thresholds, you will benefit from your content working harder for you. It's true that our library is massive and growing. But it's also true that quality content is quickly found and licensed by our growing list of customers. Our four search result sort orders -- Most Popular, Newest, Oldest, and Random -- are simple, have not changed in years, and are in combination very fair and effective. If your image is not being downloaded, it is because the image is not in demand right now, and not because the demand cannot find your image.

On the price increase:

While a few specific products in a few countries did go up quite a bit, we did not increase our overall prices by 50%, or even close to that. Our blended US and Euro price increases were about 26%, and our UK increase was about 36%. Above our core price of 249 USD or the equivalent, we charge higher amounts in some non-USD currencies to reflect the much higher costs of advertising in those markets. The UK is one example.

As some have pointed out, it's true that when a customer pays a higher price they will work harder to capture the value of their purchase. In our industry this means that, having paid a higher price for their subscription, they will go on to download more images.

We have a group of customers who lock in the lower rates with our rebilling program, so the price increase has no effect on the revenue we bring in from those customers. However, we still pay submitters the new higher payout rates when rebilled customers download.

The weak US dollar makes Shutterstock a low cost exporter to countries that have a stronger currency. While it's true that submitters in those strong currency countries are paid in USD, it's also true that a weak USD means our products are a tremendous value when compared to the locally available alternatives. The resulting increased demand for our products in those countries leads to increased downloads for all our submitters.

On the forums:

All submitters start off enjoying the benefits of forum participation, but this is a privilege, not a right. If you cannot act in a constructive and polite manner then we will remove your forum privileges.

Conclusion:

We look forward to seeing your new content and we appreciate your input. We're working very hard to continue the growth we have enjoyed over the last few years -- that is our primary objective. We hope you will all continue to let us represent your content as we move forward in this exciting industry.

Best Regards,

Shutterstock

I don't know if there will be saturation soon.  alamy is doing fine with 12 million images so why should the microstock sites have problems at these relatively low levels?  It seems that buyers always want new images.  There are swarms of new contributors but what percentage are highly motivated and have the skill to succeed?  Looking at my referrals on istock, there is still a balance between new contributors and buyers.

i am really surprised that $10,000 is the upper tier.

Yes, my sales have fallen sharply too.

I notice that Yuri has complained on the FT forum that his sales have dropped by 50%.

I do my part to upload good content to these sites.  They need to do their part to provide a viable marketplace for our images.  If they aren't doing their part then they don't get to make money off my hard work anymore.

greg...
mad...

I would say there is nothing to show as these images were added a couple of years ago just kind of a test. Two years being on micro is a lot...

A link:

http://www.art.com/asp/display_artist-asp/_/CRID--43578/Stasys_Eidiejus.htm?ui=07C19C202DA14C8EAB42C5926F998CCA

Most sold Wooden cross, 44 times.

On artistrising I deleted some images and some new are waiting for approval.

Contakt@ agree with you according "fine-art photography is the one last bastion of refuge that I will not touch by lowering my pricing. " and in general according to lowering our prices... Just curious, what could be a masterpiece if someone can pay for it's print �1,500.00?... Or I miss something?

Is it possible that someone may clone/hack a cable connection, using it even when the modem is turned off?

I was recently warned by my cable provider that I had used much more than my monthly transfer quota (20GB/month).  I never paid attention to that, as I am not a heavy Internet user. 

Checking my daily transfer stats, I found that it ranged from 0 to 0.3 GB, rarely summing more than 2GB/month, then suddenly from April 24 these numbers rose immensely, reaching on some days 10GB in just one day!  And that even when I was out of town on a business travel!!

Nobody uses my computer and I turn the modem off with the computer. 

Regards,
Adelaide