The reality is the wealthy are just stealing our money, it is the same old story down the ages, here in the UK we had the 17 & 18th century Mill Owners who would cut their workers wages, while claiming poverty and yet they all lived in large houses with servants.

Shutterstock are really no different, here is the quote from their original announcement last year:- 'We are making this adjustment in order to reflect changes in the market for creative content, help to create fair opportunities for all our contributors, and reward performance with greater earnings potential.' - Which is all just rhetoric.

I realised a few years back, that as soon as they bought outside shareholders on board, the writing was on the wall; until the capitalist system is changed to bar these so called 'investors' from enterprises that operate as collectives, which in my opinion is exactly what Microstock is, then the wealthy will continue to farm contributors.

I think Shutterstock is finished and we are likely to see a number of challengers in the forthcoming years, it's good to see Adobe selling at a decent price, which just puts the lie to Shutterstocks reason.

Over the years I have paid them thousands, which I don't mind paying a reasonable rate but it has always been higher than a fair rate.

It all comes down to a single fact that PayPal is run by a bunch of chancers who got lucky, the company was spun out of ebay.

So basically they are a bunch of crooks who cornered the market on transaction fees across the World, hopefully a reliable company will come along and take away there business or someone will sue them as  happened here in the UK with Bank PPI charges and we can all claim the overcharging back.

Quote from: H2O on October 26, 2020, 05:31

The site is run by people who only see profit,

Well that's the way it works with 99.9% of companies...
What did you expect in a world ruled by money and profit?
:p

This is a dumb comment, it doesn't work that 99.9% of companies only see profit, first and foremost the people running a company see a opportunity to market something that they think will be useful to people.

Profit is a consideration, but it is not the only criteria, apart from the fact that you have taken my quote out of context, which is pretty thick.

The World is not ruled by money and profit, it is ruled by the conscious of the majority, and on most occasions this overrides money.

You sound like the C2 Demographic.
 

I suspect we will see this site close by the end of the year.

Are they all at 10c?

I rated this agency as one that may break through, it had a well designed interface, with occasional sales, I have $40.85 in sales and used to get a payout once or twice a year.

A great shame that they can't keep going, I guess having also bought on this site it is down to the overall quality of the search and imagery, as both these could be difficult.

Still a site that is going that had quit a bit of potential.

I would say that just about every contributor must be really angry with the way Shutterstock has treated them, myself included having spent years uploading and key wording, I have put a great deal of time and money into their success.

I have stopped uploading and will never upload again, this is probably the position of many contributors, I take my hat off to those who have deleted or disabled their portfolio's, at the moment I can't do this, but as soon as I can I will.

The reality is the talent has walked and it will never go back, so the site will just slide down the rankings.

Part of this will be caused by all the negative comments about what they have done, they have miscalculated in as much as they seem to have forgotten that the people who sell on the site are also buyers and major influencers in Adervetising, Design Agencies and Corporate design and advertising departments.

Shutterstock is finished as a Company only they don't know it yet, nobody likes to be treated like a slave.

Oringer and his side kick Pavlovsky are nothing more than a couple of scammers, only this is a really big scam, they have sucked in tens of thousands.

In any normal society they would be put in jail, in America they are lauded.

They are up and running, they are a good site always get a payout every month and the RPD is good.

Over time the real talent on Shutterstock will just stop uploading if they have not disabled their ports already, nobody who is sane is going to continue to work for 10c.

The problem is for a great many contributors, especially in third world countries this is their livelihood.

The other problem is this has been sprung on people with no notice and it will take time for people to make their minds up.

The whole thing has obviously been planned by Oringe and he is using Pavlovsky to do his bidding having watched Pavlovsky video on YouTube, (link below) you can see he is totally detached from the Microstock business, to him it is about maximising the companies assets and this is the �free� 323,097,488 million image content that they have.

Whatever anyone does it will be virtually impossible to change the commission rates they are now offering, they could even go to 1c a download and there is nothing anyone can do about this, they are doing exactly what the Mill owners did in England in the 17 to 19th Century, continually cutting wages along with bringing in piece work, this in the UK took until the mid 20th century to abolish.

The only way to win with these people is to vote with your feet, but as they are so dominate in the market place this will take time.

Shutterstock are nothing more than a Corporate Mafia organisation, they are acting as in the Martin Scorsese film Goodfellers, they take over a restaurant and once they have run every scam they can think of, they burn the place down and cash in on the insurance, Shutterstock are now cashing in.

Personally I will never upload another image to them and my way forward is to sell personally and on other sites, like Adobe.

I give Shutterstock three year until they are finished, as their content will become dated and all the good content will be deleted, on top of this a great many buyers have for quite a few years found it difficult to find what they need, simply because of the piles of rubbish that they have let onto the site.

The other problem that they will have which is significant and probably the single most important factor that they have overlooked, is a great many graphic designers/art directors are also buyers and what will be more important is these people are major industry influencers, they are never going to recommend them again and will go out of there way to run them down.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=863&v=18XDzw-xlCI&feature=emb_logo

This is excellent idea, all Agencies started with very little.

Let's all hope this can be grown and push these other money grabbing sites off the cliff.

The quicker the better.

Your civil and "CONSTRUCTIVE" words on this forum on past posts  :

"So I should disable my port and not pay my rent this month because of your communist nonsense?"
"You people remind me of the American burger market, that consumers thought that 1/4 was bigger than 1/3 ... because of the ... 4>3.
Learn some math and then come to the business."
"I'm out of this sentimental bs that some people that can't calculate throw at me"


If you want "constructive" posts learn first to follow what you preach, and don't put yourself on a higher pedestal than the rest of the other forum participants. Only then you will earn the respect of the community. And if your skin is too sensitive to some little dialective scratches you might not be in the right place.

Better to die with honour than to live as a slave.

I have turned down major accounts because of honour, I do not suffer fools gladly or work for nothing.

If everyone did this then we would not have a problem, grow some and disable now, or soon, or forever regret the stream of history that has swept you away.

Maths and communism have nothing to do with this, it is human nature not to work excessively hard for no recompense.

I am Spartacus is a refrain that everyone should remember.

I saw this on the Shutterstock Forum:-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=863&v=18XDzw-xlCI&feature=emb_logo

How this guy can actually talk so much utter rubbish for 20 minutes is mind numbing.

He gives away his own thinking on the the contributors, by calling our images free content, this really shows his mindset.

Apart from this one mention the rest of the video is about him and him.