MicrostockGroup Sponsors
This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.
Messages - pancaketom
Pages: [1] 2 3 4 5 6 ... 88
1
« on: May 06, 2024, 18:08 »
only .30 and 1.02 today. yesterday I had .30 and .40
I'm not sure that my time zone (west coast USA) syncs up with Adobe's days though.
2
« on: May 05, 2024, 11:20 »
I got a custom license for .30 today - no tax withholding. This is Sunday the 5th - which seems an odd day for sales to be so high that my license cut is rock bottom.
Maybe they offset the sales a day or 2 or more to calculate out what we will get paid - it seems they would have to wait at least until the end of the day before they could calculate it. If that was the case I would expect a lump of custom sales at the time of calculation every day.
In any case the march down seems to continue. Anyone want to make any predictions when the first .29 will come - or the first .25 or lower. I don't think Adobe has said there will be a floor and they are happy to discount our images since they get paid up front and get their full cut, it is just our cut that is sliced thinner and thinner with these custom plans.
3
« on: May 02, 2024, 13:27 »
I used to provide feedback for example on their new "improved" contributor interfaces. They never seemed to listen - or at least the interfaces kept getting worse.
5
« on: May 02, 2024, 10:53 »
ooh boy, exciting news. The support we expect from Envato (I realize your content is what got us started, but we decided you are not suitable - so PFO) will continue under SS.
It is interesting to consider if SS had put more of the $ they used to acquire stuff into treating their contributors better and improving the site and service where they would be now. I think they had a ton of $ from going public and used it to reward the top brass and go on a buying spree. I am guessing it worked ok for them.
Consolidation is not surprising, but I don't see it as a good thing for contributors.
6
« on: April 24, 2024, 19:12 »
How many more images do you have to get 50% more than last year? Sadly, doubling your port won't double your income unless your quality is increasing a lot, but do you have to keep pace with the entire image library just to tread water? Sure, doubling your port isn't too hard for a few years, but it is going to become impossible eventually.
I don't really know how any of the search algorithms work, but the only one that seems to really work more for the contributor port as a whole rather than the individual image is DT to me. There are so many things that go into search placement now I wouldn't be surprised if the sites themselves don't really know how they work. The age since an image has been uploaded is probably a factor, but I doubt that the time since you joined a site is a very important factor - at least after a potential new contributor bump. I would be happy to be wrong about that since I have been a contributor to many sites for a long time.
7
« on: April 23, 2024, 19:20 »
they do their best to hide it since it is usually so sad (if it even works - which is barely, and not for the first week or so of the month when you want to see what happened last month). https://www.123rf.com/contributor/dashboardfor more detail look at the links on the left - but when going to the specific dates it usually goes to the wrong day - get ready to keep trying. They sell stock about as well as they make the user experience.
8
« on: April 23, 2024, 14:09 »
While firefly might be the most ethical - it is still trained off of images made with programs that were trained with unethically sourced data - scraping the entire web. So second generation unethical. Also the first round of training used the AS collection without asking the artists. After that there was an opt out - but the data had already been used. Legally they might have covered enough bases, but ethical - well, sort of.
If it doesn't produce images with logos that is a testament to how well they curated the images they used to train - not the ethics of it. Still an improvement, but not necessarily ethical.
Adobe is in the interesting position to be both trying to sell to the artists that create content and make them obsolete with generative AI - or at least convince investors they can do both.
9
« on: April 22, 2024, 09:43 »
I also just had 2 .32 custom sales. a new low for me (I think), no tax withholding. it is a worrying trend if it becomes common.
10
« on: April 20, 2024, 18:52 »
I think when I had 90 images on SS I made $95 that month, and I thought wow, if I put some work into this I could be living large, I didn't make over 100$ in a month until I had almost 300 images, and I didn't make over 200$ until I had 950 images, most of this was with a supposedly 4 mp point and shoot that I had to upsize just a bit to meet the actual 4 mp minimum. I definitely was not keeping up with the pace of the overall collection growth.
It got a lot easier to get images accepted when I got a dslr and moving up from .25 made a big difference. I wish I could send my old camera and computer back to me at that time.
11
« on: April 19, 2024, 17:17 »
For starters, there was no microstock before digital, Stock before digital was a completely different entity (and I was not part of it).
I am not sure I am an old timer, but I started in 2006 and would say the main difference for me 2006 to about 2012 was that there was a sense that more work, better equipment, and more images meant more income. Also there was a feeling that at least at some level there was some trickle down from the agency's success to the contributors (at least until IS became unsustainable about 2010).
I remember looking forward to the new levels from SS each year and the feeling that buying new equipment would be paid back fairly quickly and the excitement of uploading a batch to SS and seeing sales of those images in a few hours if not within a day or 2. It's a shame I didn't put more work into it at the time.
12
« on: April 16, 2024, 12:14 »
And with &order=nb_downloads you can also see how many times your free images have been downloaded.
? am I missing something? That shows all downloads. &order=nb_downloads
Yes, all downloads, paid and free
I was under the impression that the actual number of free downloads is not given - the number listed is for paid downloads when the media was not in the free section. I think that is what Mat said anyway - and seems to match what I can see in my port.
13
« on: April 13, 2024, 14:33 »
I would say time is the biggest factor against making a lot of money at microstock. I have no idea of the actual half life of images, but in general with the same port you will make less money every year from a combination of more competition (both from other artists and thieves and now AI) plus the sites taking a bigger cut either by changing the terms, selling their own material, or through backdoor accounting shenanigans or just lower costs - although inflation seems to make everything more expensive, it doesn't seem to be the case for microstock which keeps getting cheaper either in terms of actual cost or better license deals or more subs for the same amount or all you can eat buffets.
So, if you want to make $ at this you are more likely to do that by working now rather than waiting a while when looking back these will be the good old days. It is sort of like planting a tree, the best time to do it is 10 years ago (or for microstock 15 years ago), but the next best time is now.
14
« on: April 10, 2024, 13:59 »
Applies went down 2% and exports up 4%, income was actually up a little (~7%) as opposed to the previous months where everything was up except for income.
I do not understand how Canva accounting works.
15
« on: April 08, 2024, 14:34 »
I got a big for bigstock adjustment Apr 5 also. I opted out as soon as I was able to last year. I checked again and they opted me back in. So much for transparency and all that. I opted back out again. I wonder how long that will last.
Where is the Big Stock opt out anyway? I cant find it.
it is hiding under "my account" - "edit profile"
16
« on: April 06, 2024, 15:25 »
I got a big for bigstock adjustment Apr 5 also. I opted out as soon as I was able to last year. I checked again and they opted me back in. So much for transparency and all that. I opted back out again. I wonder how long that will last.
17
« on: April 04, 2024, 19:09 »
18
« on: April 02, 2024, 00:52 »
So many pages have been made less useful so they look good on a phone or just look good instead of being good. I don't like it, but I am obviously not their target market.
19
« on: April 01, 2024, 11:48 »
Brutal, how is this even possible? 3 to 4 cents comissions? What the heck?
I wouldn't be surprised if all agencies are ripping off their contributors since they all have become to greedy.
Didn't we also have the thread about Shutterstock, where even sales were not passed on to the contributors?
IStock states that they pay out almost 2 million a week. Presumably that's a similar number of sales. So mistakes can happen ... You probably don't even notice smaller ones and they are simply covered up.
Nobody can check the sales system.
3 or 4 cents has been going on for some time at IS. Check their forum, I think some people have been as low as 2 and that's not Connect, that's a iStock or Getty download.
All agencies have their best self interest to pay us what we are due and not cheat. If someone ever found out there were unpaid downloads, that were paid for and licensed, there would be one heck of a lawsuit, which could destroy the business.
Didn't we also have the thread about Shutterstock, where even sales were not passed on to the contributors? Alleged, claimed, unsupported, unless you believe everything you read on an Internet Forum, without any proof?
Correct, nobody can check the sales system. We can't anywhere or for many other business in life. There has to be some trust? If anyone works on a commission basis, they have to believe that the company they work for, is going to be honest and report everything. Otherwise, why start?
I noticed that, as usual, the people who claim SS is a bunch of crooks and insulting us with 10, don't have an answer to why they are not just as insulted or worse for 3 downloads and connect sales, from iStock? But people flocked away from SS in protest, and formed a coalition, tried a boycott, and two years later can't stop writing hate messages... still work for IS?
As a note: I still work for both. Yes, I'm insulted, but I'll take the money.
IS drew first blood - and I removed most of my content there, and if everyone had done that I am pretty sure SS would not have done what they did, but they did. The SS pulled their money grab. So I turned off my port. If everyone had done that, they would be gone or backtrack, but they didn't and they didn't. Tragedy of the commons. I am glad I am not relying on this for my food or shelter, although it managed to be over 50% of my income for a brief while.
20
« on: March 31, 2024, 17:47 »
I had a horrible week - like an xmas-new years week. 11 dl position 25900 (I'm usually around 15000) just under 3300 mostly LCV images.
22
« on: March 28, 2024, 13:36 »
My understanding is that it is worth it if you can drive traffic to your content on FAA. I just uploaded the 25 or whatever it is free images and have only had one sale in ~10 - 15 years. I think if you can't direct traffic there or have in demand content it is probably not worth the effort and cost.
Others may have a different take.
23
« on: March 25, 2024, 11:21 »
Surprise - big customers get to use our files for free for some uses (planning, mock ups, etc. ) with no watermarks so if they accidentally just go live with it nobody really notices.
The question I have for the people that got heaps of refunds, were your earnings for November oddly high (by about the same amount as the refunds)?
Pretty shoddy on the part of Getty all around.
24
« on: March 23, 2024, 16:01 »
More likely it was brought to the attention of Alamy in some fashion and then they had to pay for their previous illegal use.
For example someone was selling calendars and another user noticed their image in use and told Alamy, and then Alamy saw all 12 months were from Alamy, including one of your images and forced them to pay.
25
« on: March 20, 2024, 15:04 »
Small consolation that Getty eats 85% of the refunds.
Pages: [1] 2 3 4 5 6 ... 88
|
Sponsors
Microstock Poll Results
Sponsors
|