|
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 - obj owl
Pages: 1 [2] 3 4 5 6 7 ... 25
26
« on: June 05, 2020, 06:34 »
True, but but this thread is about Shutterstock being stubborn, dumb and making a mistake. If this does result in SS having a much larger market share then is that a lose/lose for them?
Come January I don't think any increase in 10cent subs will compensate for the losses of most contributors and they will leave in droves. To stop the rot you have to remove the limb. They can only compete with your cooperation, it's up to the contributors if they succeed or not.
27
« on: June 05, 2020, 05:50 »
Completely agree with Fern... buyers will probably not even notice the drop in files, and even if they do, give it two or three weeks and they'll have more content than before any of this was all announced. I think it's probably a little bit naive to assume that the 0.3% of content that's gone was amazing, and current, and of an exceptional quality... and the remaining 99.7% is outdated, low quality and taken on a smartphone. If that was the case, buyers would have left a long time ago. SS knew exactly what they were doing, they ran the numbers, analysed the potential risks and they'll be just fine... but with a much higher profit margin.
It matters not if Shutterstock will be just fine, it only matters how contributors come out of this and they will not be just fine. Shutterstock will use your drop in income to chase market share ensuring a further drop in income you make from other agencies, lose/lose.
28
« on: June 04, 2020, 14:21 »
There's something strange, i've opt out for 7000+ photos and 500+ video selling, when i'm consulting my dashboard I can see now there is still 970 photos in my portfolio, that's means nothing !!!!
Contributors who have opted out, do you encountering the same issue ?
Yes. My portfolio count went down in fits and starts and finally reached zero. I also saw that when the count on the screen you showed was one number, if you clicked on the portfolio link right there it'd show a different number.
It'll all go to zero shortly 
So when you disable, are the files deleted? My portfolio now shows 0 files. Not that I care if they're deleted. Just curious.
No you can turn it on just as quick as you turned it off.
29
« on: June 04, 2020, 08:18 »
https://www.microstockgroup.com/shutterstock-com/shutterstock-just-became-istock-2-0/msg551342/?topicseen#new
Yes, it is real. But, it is 13K plus 13K earler this year, which is not even 2% of his 6M shares, that means nothing. Maybe he is just buying a new house.
If you want to sell a large number of shares, you cannot dump them on the stock market on one day, especially for a small company like SS that does not have a large buyer circle.
Instead they sell small parcels every week,sometimes every day. And very carefully, so not to attract to much attention.
Oringer of course has to announce these sales, but selling for 500 000 a parcel is not dramatic.
So even if he actually wants to cash out via the stock market, he is forced to do it in these small parcels, always of varying size.
If he wants to sell everything at once, he can usually only do it in a private swap with a buyer who buys him out and the shares are ascribed to a new owner without passing through the markets.
You are right, I wanted to look into history of his transaction during last few years, but I don't know where to look. It would be an interesting info.
They should be here. https://investor.shutterstock.com/sec-filings
30
« on: June 04, 2020, 07:30 »
Shutterstock/Istock merger to "compete" with Adobe? We are doomed I tell you. Or it may be that they are seeing a massive slump ahead with Covid. I pretty sure we don't know the full story.
Getty hasn't got a bean to its name its more likely to be Visual China Group
Last time I looked which is a while back SS did have a lot of money sitting in the bank...they could maybe finance Getty's debt. In the world of investment/banking all sorts of bizarre things seem possible.
They do not want to buy market share with their money they want to do it with yours. The only reason they would be interested in getty is for their libraries of exclusive content and I doubt that would be worth the debt they have. Besides the Getty family have just done a refinancing of the business to buy it back.
31
« on: June 04, 2020, 07:02 »
Again, where is everyone getting this "special deal" stuff. If there is any it can only be for the top 1 or 2 people. I haven't ever heard about anyone having a special deal. Lots of people saying they must, but no one reporting about any such deals first hand.
Premier Select started in 2015 for top earners.
Oh okay, I wasn't thinking about that. I thought we were talking about sales through the main collection, like getting better rates on subs etc.
We are not all one community and each is not equal to the next. The top earners peeled away in 2015 and supply the majority of the content and receive most of the revenue. The top five earners are responsible for nearly 4% of all downloads. Top earners are protected at Shutterstocks and even have a Premium Select website of their own. I may be wrong, but I can't imagine that this has not been agreed with them and that this change will benefit them. They have a separate community to protect and if that means throwing everyone else to wolves so be it. The only way we can have a big effect on Shutterstock is to damage their reputation enough that it affects the top earners bottom line, if they are not happy Shutterstock are screwed. We will be gone by then, but it will send signals that we have to be invited to the negotiating table elsewhere.
32
« on: June 04, 2020, 06:49 »
Again, where is everyone getting this "special deal" stuff. If there is any it can only be for the top 1 or 2 people. I haven't ever heard about anyone having a special deal. Lots of people saying they must, but no one reporting about any such deals first hand.
Premier Select started in 2015 for top earners.
33
« on: June 03, 2020, 14:50 »
Stan Pavlovsky is pure evil.
But it's not just him. This plan had to be in the making for months, as the contributor portal had to be recoded and the royalty payment system had to be updated.
Jon Oringer must've known this was in the making. just like all other high-ranked officials there. They're pure and utter scum.
They will have been planning how to respond to Istock going percentage based subs since 2016 I think it was. I think they may have taken their eye of the ball with Adobe coming into the market and since 2018 squeezing their Enterprise Dept, which was their real money spinner. They will use this move to try to regain market share on both fronts. That's probably why Oringer stepped back so he wouldn't be tarnished and if it goes tits up he can ride back in with his white hat on and save the day. If Adobe can hold out they will pick up a lot of top content while Shutterstock and Istock blast their contributors in a price war.
34
« on: June 03, 2020, 09:39 »
Here's an idea: A petition stating that on 1st of July all the contributors that sign it will disable their portfolios for 3 days.
Now - for this to work it's necessary to reach big contributors with big portfolios, to really make an impact. It's a matter mostly of how to contact them, rather than them doing the 3-days pullout, because I saw on forums contributors with hundreds of thousands of images saying they will stop uploading. If the petition gathers only level 3-4 portfolios with few hundreds to few thousands images it's no good.
BUT, imagine that if we muster a total of 30% of the whole SS library to simply disappear for 3 days, it would definitely make an impact, like a strike. Surely, the big contributors will take a pay hit but they're already taking what SS served us, so I'm thinking it's worth it.
The meaning of this would be for SS to acknowledge the fact that without us they're not worth not even 10 cents and to listen.
I am doing stock full time, I have a portfolio of almost 50.000 images and some 2500 videos and I cannot simply disable my portfolio forever. I need to sustain my family and the SS money MUST come in. However, I stopped uploading and will not resume until all this is cleared up and we know where we stand. Also, I can and I am willing to take a 3 day even 5 day paycut, just to smack SS in the back of the head and let them know that they have to change their appalling royalties scheme. Or there can be strike 2, strike 3 and so on.
In my view, this would be more effective than some bad reviews on trustpilot and whatnot, but we have to get together on this somehow. I never made a petition or whatever is needed to put this idea in practice, therefore I encourage more learned people to do it.
I can't see a situation in which the top earners didn't have fore warning of this and cut their own deal, throwing us under the bus in the process. Part of our cut will pay for their deal.
35
« on: June 02, 2020, 14:37 »
we should organise us in teams with special tasks.
For Example:
Twitter Team
Facebook Team
Google Ads Team
Trustpilot Team
Customer Phone Team
We should give SS the best service that we can provide! 
You can add Linkedin
The best way is not for contributors to leave, Shutterstock doesn't care about losing even 10,000 contributors.
The best way is to "force" customers to go elsewhere.
and the best way to get customers to go elsewhere is to leave. This is going to go on well into 2021, move on.
36
« on: June 02, 2020, 13:02 »
Interesting about the discounting comment - so that is maybe why Shutterstock would not produce a chart showing these sort of numbers I guess.
Steve
Set rates for subs would have cost them lots of money if they tried to discount too much, not anymore because they can do it with our money and still profit from it. Before it cost them 38cents for every sub now it's 10c, that gives them 28c for each sub to play with, enough to cover the difference with Istock's 0.2c. if they want to get in a price war and market share is what they have always been about. They have a list of every buyer who left and moved to other agencies and each and everyone of them will have had a call from the Enterprise Team saying that they can now do a deal that they can't refuse. I expect that in January when everybody is at 15% 10cents will look generous compared to Istock's 0.2cents. Leave your images on these sites at your own risk.
37
« on: June 02, 2020, 11:22 »
I'm getting higher payments in the Subscription section of the earnings report, but then lots of smaller numbers in the Single and Other section. And what is even worse - those small numbers don't align with the table that we sort of understood would be used to pay out against the various subscription packages. I included that table in my blog post so I have an easy place to find it, but it is here as well. I don't know who produced the first version of this (lost in the Shutterstock forum), but thanks to that person:
Steve
You will never be able to follow that chart due to discounting, and now they can do it big time.
40
« on: June 01, 2020, 15:45 »
Wasn't subscriptions supposed to change? I am still getting a lot of $0.38 or maybe they kept the annual prepaid plans the same and they changed only the dl's from new customers?
Did they clarify this anywhere? I still have a large part of "normal" sub downloads.
The only way to test what really SS did is by monitoring it as Lifetime downloads vs lifetime downloads before new system came into effect.
So for example my lifetime average in SS was 0,65 / dl, if it drops it means that the new system isn't all that good for contributors.
Subscription now seems to be in Single And Others now
They are in both, just depends on how they were purchased. Deals made with the Enterprise Team will be in Single And Others and likely discounted hence 10c.
41
« on: June 01, 2020, 13:25 »
Thats interesting in a way.
We were told the SODs for sub value were things like FB adverts and so on NOT subscriptions.
So it seems we get 10 cents for those as well NOT just subscriptions.
The 0.10$ SODs might possibly be a mistake and supposed to be SUBs. At least I just had a customer download two images who frequently buys from me (always same city and same topic of images, so I know it's the same) and the images used to be SUBs previously and are now listed under SODs.
Tiny SODs and subs are the same except for internal accounting, in that subs are bought directly through the website and tiny SODs are subs sold via the Enterprise Team like the facebook deal. The reason why the SODs are 10c is that the real price falls below 10c so the 10c floor kicks in. They are selling your images for next to nothing. 10c is what you can expect when they start discounting subs, expect a lot in January.
42
« on: May 31, 2020, 14:54 »
As many of us will disable portfolios on 1st of June what if we do it simultaneously? What could be impact on servers and customers experience?
We are all over the world, in different time zones but doing it in 3 steps is possible.
For example:
18:00 GMT for America (NYC 2pm, LA 11am)
04:00 GMT for Asia/Australia (2pm Sydney, 1pm Tokyo)
12:00 GMT for Europe/Africa (2pm Berlin/Paris, 3pm Moscow)
Have you noticed that there are reports of people's logins being suspended for a month, rather than their accounts outright closed in some cases? I wonder if this is to prevent coordinated action. They wont be able to login and deactivate on the 1st. Maybe SS is hoping this will have all blown over by July.
I dont think this is a maybe. I think they are banking on it.
It's all going to come back to haunt them in January whatever they do.
43
« on: May 31, 2020, 14:15 »
I have about $25 left in my Shutterstock account. If I disable my portfolio and leave Shutterstock will they pay out? Or will I have to wait until I hit $50? Thanks
You can set the minimum payout to $35, but if you don't hit it this month payment should be due around the 8th of July if you disable your account. They may pay you quicker if you close your account after you reach $35, they may not.
44
« on: May 31, 2020, 10:14 »
The time to stand up to SS was long ago... Why anyone is surprised at these actions, is beyond me. I tried to set off alarm bells long ago and was met with a great deal of push back & disdain.
SS/JO = Pure greed and nothing more... Actions have shown for many years; that they do NOT value contributors! Contribute to SS @ your own peril.
Everybody has a different tipping point, it was Shutterstocks job to manage that so it didn't all go tits up at the same point, this time they failed.
45
« on: May 30, 2020, 21:53 »
...apparently if you have money in your account at the time of closure that money is kept by them
As your contract says they will.
"8.3 There is a minimum payout rate per accounting period of: Thirty Five US Dollars (USD 35.00) (the "Payout Minimum"). If during an accounting period, you haven't reached the Payout Minimum or provided Shutterstock a valid electronic payment account, your compensation will be rolled over into the next accounting period. If you cancel your account prior to accrued earnings in your royalty account reaching the applicable Payout Minimum, you thereby forfeit such royalties. For clarity, you shall have no right to any earnings accrued following the disabling of your contributor account or until such time as the applicable Payout Minimum threshold is reached."
Would that be the case if they changed their Terms and Conditions given that it is usual to give 30 days notice to accept the terms or not?
46
« on: May 30, 2020, 16:16 »
I dont want them to close. I very sincerly hope they prefer to work this out together with us.
At least this is what the old Shutterstock would do.
I loved that they welcomed critique, really vonsidered it, thought about things and came back with great solution.
Everybody I met from the Shutterstock team was fantastic and highly qualified.
What happened?
The main problem is that until recently companies were managed by humans, with all the positive and/or negative consequences that this can imply, but still considering the human aspect.
Today companies are managed by Excel files and algorithms... And this changes everything.
They do employ/consult behavioral scientist especially when big changes are made, they will have discounted any action they expect us to take. We need to take the unexpected action of closing out account.
47
« on: May 30, 2020, 13:15 »
People keep saying (hoping) that customers will go to Adobe. They will go to Istock and Getty, unfortunately. There is bigger possibility for that, it's a bigger stock company.
Right. Most of the contributors take their desires for a reality...
I know different people who went from Shutterstock to iStock, not Adobe.
Buyers go where they think it's more convenient for them, and frankly they don't give a dаmn about our "little problems" as contributors!
The agencies know who the buyers are, who has come and gone over the years. Shutterstock have not been able to compete with Istock on subs until now so have only had half a product with which to compete. Both are now able to trash the competition with discounting and if they compete with each other heavy discounting. This will also trash you returns. Don't let them chase market share with your images, because there will be either only two dogs left in the race when they are finished or the other agencies will have to join them in the fight.
48
« on: May 29, 2020, 14:46 »
They are not hearing us or listening to us, but their outsourced customer support are actively reviewing all feedback and addressing contributor questions directly. Taking the piss is what they are doing.
.
49
« on: May 29, 2020, 12:40 »
So now Im getting this on forum.
Your account has been suspended and you therefore do not have permission to access this site.
Your suspension will be lifted on June 30, 2020.
Does this stand for forum only or the site and forum are connected ?
Give us your username and password and I will check it out for you.
50
« on: May 28, 2020, 12:39 »
I will not disable anything.
I will wait to see the actual sales results in June and July and also to see if Shutterstock comes to their senses and adjusts their new royalty plan, especially, if they cancel the yearly reset to zero.
Once I have all that information I will adjust new uploads accordingly.
Especially with video I might favor other places.
And if the results from photo sales falls, I will upload new content elsewhere first and SS will become an agency for older content.
But if the money is more or less the same, I will change nothing.
Thanks for standing up for a little bit of reason instead of hasty angry reactions.
I will wait and see, before I determine that everything is terrible and that SS has become the evil force in the Universe of Microstock.
I don't understand why people are turning off, closing, shutting down, when they have no information or data, on how this actually affects us? If nothing else, I'm at a good level and will be going up another soon, and I can make money until January 1st, and then decide.
No I will not disable my portfolio June 1st, it's too soon to see how this will affect anything or how it will change my earnings.
That could be a sensible approach to some business model changes..
But in this case there are elements of it which are nothing but shameless greed and squeezing money out from contributors. Mainly the resetting to 15% commission every January. That is just outrageous and should not be accepted in any form, no matter how sales develop in the future.
Everyone needs to decide for themselves. I'm taking the money until January 1st and then I'll see.
I don't make video, well I do but it's all exclusive on P5. I only actively supply three agencies. SS, AS and Alamy. This could be different and be why someone else would rather make nothing from the best earning agency as their personal decision. Anyone who disables their account is guaranteeing they will make nothing from SS. If that's a business plan, for income and earnings, it's very unusual.
I kind of hope this hands Adobe the biggest share of the market as I prefer them. Something else we can watch for seven months, and see what happens.
Both Shutterstock and Istock now have the ability to discount subs heavily to regain market share and still make their profit. That means Adobe cannot compete unless they follow suit like Alamy did last year by cutting commissions. We only get one chance at this and that is not to allow a price war with out images. If they succeed we lose not only at Shutterstock, but everywhere else as well in the long run.
Pages: 1 [2] 3 4 5 6 7 ... 25
|
Sponsors
Microstock Poll Results
Sponsors
|
Show Posts
