As long as, continue the current trading system. I still think that the market will evolve towards associating collectives that erase the intermediary. I am convinced that there will be many groups that will coexist with AS in the short term future.

Do you have any evidence for that? From what I see the most succesful businesses these days are intermediaries from hotel booking sites to take-away apps. I really hope this changes but I wouldn't place any bets on it right now.

The only way I'd consider it is if they took a commission on any money retrieved. If they are as good as claimed they'd be coining it. Though they'd need to with a staff of at least 22. (Norton won't let me go to their about us link).

The simple answer is "because they can".  These platforms are relatively new. I would expect them to follow the same lifecycle as all crowd sourcing enterprises...when more people see the opportunity and  pile in the margins for suppliers will decrease. The trick is to get in early.

Quote from: Pauws99 on August 22, 2020, 09:51

Going exclusive at microstock prices would be incredibly risky in the current market. I used to think if Shutterstock went exclusive I would consider it...look how that could have turned out.

 Image exclusivity would be good, and I don�t know why all agencies don�t offer that. Must be some financial reason why they don�t.

I would imagine it would be very difficult to police and determine how similar an image is for it to be sufficently similar to make it "the same".

Same guy who blows his trumpet �If it weren�t for guys like me fighting SS to increase royalties to contributers, back when they were paying 20 cents...�
Meanwhile the guys still supporting SS and their now 10 cent scheme

Well its the same business philosophy as SS really.

You people must be lucky then with Adobe! I am a level 6 myself now and SS as usual is badly down and I certainly can't see any increase at all with Adobe and neither can a ton of fellow members that I know.
Adobe is doing exactly the same as SS which is nursing and looking after members from poorer countries simply because they upload in droves only they dont do it as obvious as SS.
Just saying

If people are uploading more it only makes sense for a business to encourage them where they come from is irrelevant.

Quote from: Shelma1 on August 06, 2020, 07:43

He took the money from our pockets and placed it directly into his bank account. This is capitalism at its finest.

That's not capitalism, but a blatant and despicable robbery.

Perfectly legal as far as I know under the capitalist system we have.

Quote from: wds on August 03, 2020, 21:23

The only way "there is no going back" may not be true is if ultimately, the agencies find they have pushed pricing so low that they themselves can no longer sustain a business.

whole point is they HAVEN'T reduced prices, just the amt paid to contributors - they continue to make the same as before

A pricing model based on a percentage paves the way for doing that..and we don't really know whether they've cut prices or not with the various deals they flog.

The shots my clients are usually looking for are happy family shots, often with children, either at home or outdoors. It is a struggle to find great, well-lit, naturally posed shots like this at any of the agencies that aren't strictly white people. Stocksy definitely offers more diversity, but I have had difficulty finding these sort of traditional happy family images. Maybe I'm wrong and need to look again, but it seems to me that Stocksy is more focussed on younger, hipper, non-traditional images. Which is great, just not what my clients need.

Hoperfully some people on here will read this and fill the gap in the market.

Quote from: Uncle Pete on August 01, 2020, 09:28

Quote from: PixelsAway on August 01, 2020, 08:35

total microstock earnings from the first 7 months of 2020 compared to 2019:
-1% with ~1800+ files uploaded this year

It's actually much better than in previous 3 years or so.
I am just trying to find some good news here ...

Right, RPD is better at AS, but earnings are better at SS.

While I'm easily down 60% and that's all agencies, not the latest protest hate site  some people have been doing better. From a superficial, (opinion not scientific) general read, more people are not. I honestly think the answer is down to current news or trending materials, newer images, trending colors and designs and what's needed now, not old worn out Microstock cliche images.

What's odd for me, is the Editorial hasn't lost anything, some are years old, out of date, but my personal stock "best sellers", have lower downloads, everywhere.

I'm tired...  Unmotivated, with little energy to push on regardless and make new images. That's not just the 10� slap, but everywhere for everything stock, for me.
...

partly it's covid - there's mental toll that flies under our personal radar: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/09/opinion/sunday/coronavirus-depression-anxiety.html

i don't track RPD, but my # of downloads is off about30% across all agencies, so it's not just SS policy, that makes it worse, but the problem is deeper and likely related to the economic devastation - millions more unemployed and federal benefits stopped yesterday, millions losing health case, no-eviction mandates expiring, ...

given this, it's not surprising that the image market has imploded - a similar but smaller process took place during the 200+ financial crisis; this time any recovery looks to be much slower

Covid is often accelerating a trend that is already there from 5 years to three months. In the UK this is things like closures of bland "me too" Restaurant chains. Mstock has been on a downward path for contributors for some time. Strangely though my image sales are holding up numbers wise and with the obvious exception of SS RPD too.

Quote from: Josephine on July 31, 2020, 11:53

Selling illustrations is perfect for people who depend on a wheelchair, who have no voice, who cannot hear, who have mental problems and so on, it�s a big big chance for them and part of their daily therapy to be accepted by the society.
By the way, the term "underdeveloped country" is politically not correct.

I agree. Please explain why you're upset with people who are fighting for a higher wage that YOU will also benefit from? I really don't get it. If nobody fights, the agencies will just keep dropping royalty rates, and eventually they'll be unsustainable for YOU, too. 10� is OK right now. How about a year from now, when they drop it to 1�? Still OK? 0.1�? OK then? When you're starving with 0.1� on each sale and Oringer and Pavlovsky are scooping up your money to pay for their extravagant lifestyles, still OK?

At what point does it become not OK for millionaires and billionaires to take your money to buy their pool tables, caviar, champagne and mansions? When does it become not OK for rich white men in The United States to take money from disabled women (I'm assuming you're a woman) in Africa?

Maybe other people telling her whats good for her and being called a Troll for having a different opinion?

Quote from: Pauws99 on July 29, 2020, 13:51

I can no longer bear to read SS's communication as its so full of management/techno gobbledygook. It seems to me the purpose of the business has been forgotten....this rarely ends well.

Let me summarize if that will help? 

Cut expenses.

Less humans, support, reviewers, or their involvement. Replace with computer learning.

Use API partners as the main source of revenue and less reliance on enterprise or SS sales.

It should be something like "To provide high quality imagery to customers in a convenient way at a competitive price" They are too busy cutting costs and playing with untested technology to remember that.

I can no longer bear to read SS's communication as its so full of management/techno gobbledygook. It seems to me the purpose of the business has been forgotten....this rarely ends well.