I have a file that has been selling 60-70 times / month.
Since July it has earned them over 2000 $ and occupied one of the top spots in best match, they even selected it for a lightbox maintained by their staff.
Now this file is gone, I checked the first 30 pages.
That is ridiculous, they must be desparate.

Hmmpfh. Went to sign up with Shutterstock only to find someone else has already grabbed my brand identity of 'fotoVoyager'.

I'm rather surprised that you decided to drop the crown since you have quite many succesful Vettas.
Bear in mind, Shutterstock doesn't accept modern architecture anymore (you have a very nice series from Valencia).
Also, they don't accept "non-newsworthy" editorial photos anymore. IMHO their editorial program is seriously flawed, they want only the type of images that have a very short life cycle which doesn't justify the low prices. You have very good editorial images, but you will have difficulties getting that accepted on SS. DT does accept modern architecture and "non-newsworthy" editorials but they don't sell so much.

No way. For an independent it doesn't make any sense whatsover - it is UNSUSTAINABLE.
They should raise my commissions significantly and I will reconsider.

Amazon's Kindle prices for many titles has increased about 50% during the last year. Amazon says, "The publisher sets the prices." Hmmm. Maybe the microstocks could raise prices and claim, "The photographers set the prices."
I know. I'm dreaming.

There was an agency that allowed some contributors to set their prices. And the contributors did raise their prices.

Then, a new agency came to the market and said: "We're going to charge our customers a fraction of what the other agencies do. We're also going to pay some of the lowest commissions in the industry".
The contributors were very happy with that: "Way to go guys! You guys rock! I'd better start uploading right away!"

So, your dream does not make any sense. Microstock photographers are too stupid to set their own prices. Some even claim that 2 dollars is more than 6 dollars (really).

Once in my life I referred a buyer to IS, but I will not do that again because those idiots cut my royalties.
For non-exlusives referring buyers to IS is 'unsustainable'.

Thanks Race, good idea with the master password, I just set it.

My image that disappeared is 4 years old, but the one that I found on page 13 is less than 4 years (by about a month), so I wonder if they booted images older than 4 years? Another possibility is that it is just over 4 MP I think so maybe a penalty for smaller images? I am just speculating here.

This is not the case. One of my images is from May, downsized to 9 MP, downloaded almost 500 times since May.
Gone from the popular sort.
It must appear in other searches though, because it was downloaded today nevertheless.

I think MSG functions very well as it is now. Why fix something that ain't broken?

I can think of at least 2 individuals whose identities were known to everybody and yet they got kicked out for crossing the line.
1. Shankster the gangster
2. Do you remember the guy called "Contact" a.k.a. "Editorial"? He was here when I joined MSG in 2008. He was "pretty good" too and got banned.

On the other hand there are numerous people who prefer not to reveal their identity but whose input is very valuable.
The most visible effect of requiring confirmed identities would be a reduced member base.

I think Pond5 is bigger with footage.  I gave up with istock.  It was really tedious and time consuming getting a clip on the site.  The web page upload was glitchy and I saw lots of complaints about FTP.  The really long review times and a 15% commission took away all my motivation.

Pond5 are taking several weeks to review clips at the moment but they have cut that to less than a week several times.  I don't spend an hour uploading there only to find something has gone wrong, their upload is almost error free.  Most importantly, they have lots of buyers and 50% commission.

+1

Yup I've got that email. Like I said, cutting commissions for top sellers makes more sense profit-wise.

C'mon... you sell ELs on FT for 100 and on PD for 5... and you don't see a connection
In my day job I work for a major wholesaler in our field. If a supplier in wholesale did the kind of stunt that you have been doing, they would just get a kick in the a55. I wouldn't touch this kind of suppliers with a 10 foot pole.  

Fotolia has been mirroring IStock's moves, so I believe this had to do with the forced inclusion of files into ThinkStock.

AFAIK Thinkstock pays 0.28 USD for subs and FT 0.27 USD or 0.27 EUR, depending on your zone. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Does anyone have any idea which agencies they are referring to?

I bet they are referring e.g. to Photodune, since they never seemed to be interested in DT's or IS's pricing.
If it is really so and they don't refer to other big sites, I think this is the right move.

All you muppets supplying Photodune and selling ELs for 5 USD x 25%, did you really think this would have no consequences?
How old are you? 10? You really thought they would not mind if you demand 100 USD for an EL at FT and happily sell the same elsewhere for 5 USD? Wait for more! In fact you guys are lucky that I'm not the CEO of FT because I would degrade your rank to "transparent" and pay you 1% because by selling at Photodune you have announced publicly that you will lick any peanuts off the floor anywhere where peanuts are to be found. You undercut yourselves, you undercut everybody else, you should not expect a fair treatment. You are cheapos, period.

In the Photodune thread I recommended that Photodune's contributors make a projection how much money they will lose when the big sites adjust  their commisions to Photodune's levels. Here you go.

I do think that FT are greedy *, but some contributors are way more greedy than FT.
Eventually all greed gets punished.