All cryptos are the same, a Ponzi scheme. Most of my money is in bitcoins, but I can't see any problem with doge. At the end of the day what you really need to know is you can't invest money in these things if you are not ready to lose it.

Is just gambling.

Quote from: dirkr on December 22, 2020, 10:22

https://eyeem.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360016650057


Took me only minutes to close my account...

Thanks, interesting reading. At least the levels are for minimum of12 months when you move up.

Also since I didn't know, partners are Getty and Adobe? Like others, the artists get a percentage of the leftover percentage?

So sorry for you. I've pulled all my work from them and went exclusive for video at Pond5 as a way to try and stave off canibalising cheap video sales at SS rather than full priced sales at other agencies.

Quote from: CommuniCat on June 28, 2020, 13:21

Everyone is in the same boat. Nobody can do without the money, but Shutterstock is pulling the whole industry down. It's imperative, especially for video, that we get our files onto Pond5 and off SS.

Pond5 is a major player in video licensing. If you go exclusive, they get your files back onto Adobe and onto Vimeo stock. You get 60% of revenue. If you do the maths, you realise that you don't lose much from an Adobe perspective. It's earnings comparable.

Quite simply no its not.  P5 does not sell as much full stop.

Most of us ALREADY have our all files on P5 and have done for many years.  non exclusive we get 40% not 60% but that in no way makes up for the low sales.
You don't have to believe me, look at the monthly survey graph on this very site - P5 is one of those tiny lines right down the bottom amongst such giants as DT and 123RF in terms of earnings.
The P5 forum isnt exactly full of people praising how well sales have taken off and how well exclusive is doing for them either.

If a site by volume sells only about 10% per month vs another site than a 60 to 40% difference in commission is negligible and makes almost zero difference to the final totals.

The maths for me (and looking at the graphs, others) is very simply.  Pulling videos off SS and AS to go P5 only will lose us many hundreds of dollars per month in lost revenue.  Thats the brutal reality here.

Quote

So you're telling me it's much better to keep supporting SS and kill the whole industry because other agencies will have to follow, make a few hundred bucks the next couple of months until it gets

Im not convinced you reside in the real world.  You havent explained how if, having guaranteed $0.00 income from Shutterstock you're supposed to buy anything with that?  Are there landlords im unaware of that accept principle in lieu of rent money?  Do supermarkets have an option to pay with good will instead of money?

If you pull a portfolio you are guaranteeing an in come of 0.  Nothing.  No money.  No payout. Nothing goes into the bank.

If you're also deluded enough to think SS will care (or even notice) an absolutely miniscule number of contributors pulling an utterly insignificant amount of media off the site then by all means go ahead.  The problem is you think you matter or are somehow important to them.  You're not.  None of us are.  You can do all you want but it isnt going to change their policy which has been costed, planned and modelled.
So its your choice whether you want to accept a guarantee of no money and buy food with it or settle for a not-ideal but some money instead.
But to think anything will change due to actions is utterly deluded.

I was making a middle tier agency income from my own symbio site and growing. Shut down overnight when the EU said we couldn't sell a single digital file online directly without getting VAT registered and charging VAT. Not worth the hassle, another win for the silicon valley giants.