Sigh.

back on ignore...

haha. sigh. wah wah wah. who'd you put on ignore, & do you think they actually care? lol, extremely funny that you feel the need to announce that...

ty!

There is no way in Germany to own any kind of property or land and not pay local taxes. It is not much though, around 30 euros a month or 300-400 a year. Municipality costs for garbage etc.. are a lot higher and a bigger problem.  Plus occasional repairs that we share as owners but can be quite high.

I have around 50sqm, the place is fully paid, no debts.

It is funny what you say about the "dark brown masses" of whatever part of the world you personally don't like.

Here in Europe we think that way about the white hillibilly americans that are part of a cult and happily do their masters bidding and long to live under a king or emperor. Unfortunately they also want gigantic wars with millions dead to fullfill their rapture religious fantasies...they are unbelievably uneducated, can barely read and write but always have an opinion...

The ai youtube spammers are the same people that bring you all the crypto scams and there are also lots of very clueless white people who think ai images is some magic money.n

There is also one very simple reason that ai attracts many people from ultrapoor countries...50 dollars a month can be like 500 in the us midwest or 2000 here in Germany.

So the high volume but low income ports, make a lot of financial sense to that group of producers.

They are just as clueless as the mobile phone crowd that started doing stock 10 years ago.

Microstock are open platforms for total amateurs. But the talent can learn and rise, including the ai talent.

I am not worried about ai producers, like I am not worried about the mobile phone talent. Most will give up in 2 years and only a few that remain will actually be regular producers.

I hate having bestsellers copied, so I hope the new strategy of a long tail plus editorial will lower that problem.

But I am glad you liked my analysis, I am posting here because I know many people who have neglected their ports and are wondering if it is still worth getting in.

However everyones situation is different and what sold well 20 years ago will not sell in the same way today.



Adapt or die like in every business.

1. Lol - it's not I don't "like" a certain group - it's simply stating a fact how different groups act, and what 'business ethics' they have (or don't have). (And lol, don't believe I've ever referred to them as the 'dark brown masses').

b) Re: what's really going on - each group (speaking of the 'general masses') depending on their country seems to have had their beliefs about other cultures/races/etc shaped by television, the "news", etc.

c) As for your perception of americans, interesting that is what would be filtered down to you, and assuming that is what is presented to German people through t.v./the news/etc. Have you ever lived in the the US for an extended period of time? The t.v. (in the usa) generally portrays the military as a noble cause (and I don't think many know or realize that unfortunately they are being 'used' by a small group of psychopaths to cause chaos in the world, get oil, get gold, control the drug trade/etc. (And interestingly enough, apparently this small groups congregates in the vatican in europe, as well as the ukraine. I think most soldiers (and not just the us, but canada, europe, etc) unfortunately don't see the bigger picture - and the way the military is structured - its designed to keep it that way. I think most people that join the military genuinely believe they are doing good (its only the people at the very top that really know what is going on). (Kind of like freemasonry as well that relies extensively on 'secrets'. Those @ the bottom believe they are genuinely doing good, and in some ways they are - but @ the top - they really know what is going on and are manipulating the masses generally speaking for other purposes).

Not sure if you are aware of this - but I'd say that in North America - through schooling - Germans (generally speaking) are portrayed as really bad "nahzees" through constant bombardment of movies, tell-a-vision, etc, that "hatejews" and "attack" them at every turn, etc, etc. (Even though apparently what really happened in the his-story (aka fiction) books for the most part consists of lies, misdirection, and even if there was an individual who acted a certain way - it doesn't mean their offspring, relatives, etc would be the same). I'd say very few people (unless they've looked into it further) know that a lot of Germans are very intelligent, very good engineers, and many of them (if they come to North America) are fearful of being associated what the t.v., the history books, the schooling, etc portrays them to be (which, pretty much consists of lies/manipulation/etc).  Many - if they move here - are so fearful of being associated with that - tend to 'overcompensate' and state their 'love' for the jewishpeople/how wonderful they are/etc, and how they would never to anything so heinous as portrayed in the (hi)story books, so they aren't visciously attacked (from how the t.v., the movies, and schooling portrays them as in general).

But the people pulling the strings like to try and keep people at odds.

d) I would agree with you that a lot of people (in general, not just north america) - are kept 'dumbed down'. Not sure what your definition of being able to 'barely read' is - but yes - schooling (in general) teaches children to 'read slowly' (as a control mechanism), through something called 'sub-vocalization'. (I.e., people generally 'hear' words when they read as opposed to 'visually' reading (aka speed reading), which severely limits their comprehension of topics, how much they can consume, and makes it difficult to learn new things). Apparently - the schooling (controlled in a big part by the Rockefeller family) is designed to keep the general masses able to follow simple instructions (i.e., "dont park here"), but not really able to see much farther than that.

I think that is partly why video is so popular. Yes, it 'looks nice' - but - you can only consume so much video at once, and the 'speed' is throttled. (I.e., one could read a complete 200 page book (60,000 words in a paperback) in 2-3 hours (with subvocalization), 30 minutes with speed reading, but to watch the same video (at a speaking rate of about 140 wpm) would take about 7-8 hours.

e) I  do agree with you that there are also 'clueless ai caucasian' people... but the "AI" has been introduced into those (what people tend to call '3rd world countries) in order to try and make a super poor class, by stealing from people (who tend to be white/caucasian) that did the work in the first place. (And interestingly enough, tends by the very super wealthy class - which tends to be 'jewish', just look @ the background of the ceo of midjourney, chatgpt, etc and who tends to fund the other 'ai' companies - and they in general use their vast financial resources to try and cast dispersion if anyone questions their tactics and/or states the obvious. I.e., through things like 'anti-hate' legislature, constant movies about WWII and the 'plight' they face, and constant tell-a-vision programming to make them (in general) appear as a poor, hard done by group that is 'just being picked on'. In general - if anyone says anything - the same television programming as trained many people to respond "omfg! anti-semite", etc - instead of actually doing some investigation for themselves to see if there is merit to the statement. It is a psychological manipulation tactic designed to 'short-circuit' peoples brains/thinking & reasoning capacity.

But bottomline - one of the things going on (esp with "ai", which is simply sophisticated theft) - is "they" (the ultra-rich class that likes to call themselves the 'plutocracy') - are trying to steal as much as they can and make everyone else into poor slaves.

2. a) Wow re: the 50 sqm. By north american standards, that is a very tiny house. (Do you have a family living there too? Or just yourself?)
b) While I haven't looked fully into how German property is structured - I've found in North America people are taught to believe the same thing (i.e., that they 'have' to pay 'property tax' 'or else!') - but requires a bit of digging to realize you don't. But the big fact is - if one pays property tax, and the threat is that if they don't, it will be 'seized' - then they don't actually 'own' the property - but are rather 'renting' the property. It may be a small rent - but it is still rent. And like rent - the landlord at any time could 'see fit' to raise the rent (aka 'taxes'), and if the tenant is not able to pay, use the 'legal system' to kick them out.

3. In terms of still getting in... I agree with you people would need to be smarter about it if they wanted to make some serious $$$... whether it is figuring out how to more intelligent increase production, or more intelligently meet client needs - it does require thinking, which can supercede the spam-all-you-can model employed by a lot of people in '3rd world' countries...

i've never gotten a payment - have several thousand videos there (including having signed up for their 'subscription' model)... the support really sucks - so not sure if I have made sales - just they haven't 'logged' it (i.e., kept it) or what... doesn't make sense that over several years would have 'never' made a sale there...

It�s a start.

You will move up very quickly with more sales.

my weekly dropped to 1290

Now that is peculiar. Is that picture actually from 'today'? Because right now I have a higher download count than you with a much lower 'ranking'.
Possibly maybe your console just hasn't been 'updated' yet (so your ranking is say as of Monday or something). Because otherwise I find that a bit peculiar...!

@Cobalt:
There are currently 54,500 (and about 8,000 left to upload - currently a few hundred a day).
The review queue is limited to 3001, as far as I remember.

AI png I also have around 1,000 images in my portfolio, but only silhouettes - �real� png#s are very time-consuming and I'm not a graphic designer

@SuperpPhoto:
Yes, I was also under the impression that upload quantity doesn't have such a big impact, but the chance of a �good seller� is just bigger with more bandwidth.
It's my last attempt in the field of AI images with large quantities by my standards and a wide range of topics to catch a few �top sellers�.


I'll be using my AI picture account for the last week and then I'll be on holiday - a few days after Iceland to get the camera glowing again

I kind of thought the same thing - but - no, nothing seems to have 'caught on' as a 'best seller' (at least not yet). And I thought the increased diversity of assets would mean more sales in different markets - but - it just seems to 'replace' other stuff that was selling "relatively" well.

Plus - it is strange, it seems like there is almost a 'max # of weekly downloads' per account... like - even though I did a lot more work, the downloads kind of just fluctuate within a certain range, not really going up, and not really going down overall. It seems to have been like that for about the last 1.5 years within the same 'range'.

Quote from: SuperPhoto on February 14, 2025, 09:26

Quote from: stoker2014 on February 14, 2025, 09:23

Am I the only one with a decrease in income? 

Nope.

By what percentage has your income decreased? 

Actually since the "good news" e-mail where they were promising more sales (maybe just to themselves) - about 20-30% less as well.

Am I the only one with a decrease in income? 

Nope.

Quote from: cobalt on February 12, 2025, 04:44

But stock is not dead, I expect the media industry to keep growing at a rapid pace over the next 10 years.

Yes, I agree with what you say.

The only big problem is that the stock industry is not respecting our work as contributors.

I don't think that if I sell 15,000$ of photographs per month it is fair to only receive 3,000$ (20% I think is the average between SS, IS, and AS)

I think it is very unfair.

From which I have to subtract the taxes of my country and the costs of production (I do travel and landscape, I need good equipment and I have about 4/5,000 euros per year of travel costs).

I agree with you it is wrong. I'd suggest though one method is to figure out how to do marketing, and then create your own site to sell the photography/videography.

In my 15 years of stock I have always uploaded about 400 images per year ... just over 1 per day.

I have always looked for the highest quality. Sometimes I spent 3 hours retouching an image. In addition to the time and cost to take it.

And this brought me an income of between 3k and 4k per month until two/three years ago. This income also includes the sale of prints and licenses through my website. I also spent a lot of time on marketing.

Then, in the last 3 years, with the collapse of sales on Shutterstock, and the arrival of AI on Adobe Stock and on POD sites, everything became much more complicated and the old strategies no longer worked. And I lose about 1K per month compared to before. Now, I am at the limit for a European salary.

My photos are much better than those of 5 or 10 years ago, but the highest quality no longer works as before.

The reason? I don't know.

Some hypotheses:

- The average quality has increased thanks to new software that is easier to use. So I have new competitors.
- The arrival of AI that allows good quality (at low resolution) and, above all, incredible production speed.
- The tsunami of AI images on Adobe and on Pods sites has obscured my visibility. Portfolios with many images are more visible than mine
- Every year, RPD gets lower and lower

Last year I uploaded almost 700 images and this year I would like to upload 100 per month. I have slightly lowered the quality to increase the quantity.

However, I am not sure that this choice is the right one.

I'd agree with all your assessments/hypotheses here. Also - if your net income "only" dropped by $1k - you are actually still doing quite well in spite of all the new competition.

Knowing that then - the question is - what do you do about it?
a) You can produce more. That is the hamster on the wheel thing though, unless you can spam all you can.
b) You can figure out how to market better. Not as 'easy' to do for people - so - gives you a bit of an edge.
c) Figure out how to make your images stand out more. I do agree with cobalts insight that the east indian spammers simply copy off other people for the most part - so by having a unique portfolio - not necessarily 'best sellers' - but consistent sellers - makes it last longer.

I would not lower your quality, otherwise you reduce your distinguishing features - plus - you won't feel good about it longterm. Money is not the "only" thing. Figure out how to increase your production speed while maintaining your quality.

maybe no one submitted results? (didn't know people still used it).

Anyways - seems to be blank for me too. Perhaps a mysql error, or just no submissions...

Quote from: stoker2014 on February 04, 2025, 10:11

Does anyone sell photos on this site? How is the income?

They sent to the contributors a Happy New Year cut on 01.01.2025. Its the second cut in 3 years. The first one was when the new owners took over. We had a zoom call with the new owners then and they assured us that everything will be as before......well not really. After they took over they started calculating the earnings differently so it resulted in 30-50% down. Now on February 15 we will see what is the damage this time. In fact there is a nice discussion on reddit and linkedin that can shed light to your question. You can see part of that zoom call and what they say . 

https://www.reddit.com/r/AfterEffects/s/dhZz4Zr0kD


Check the comments too.

Interesting thread, thanks! Yes - the isralie company that acquired them seem to be liars, and instead focusing on stuffing their own pockets. I don't upload there any more because it is a waste of time.

I got into shutterstock it seems after a lot of the great sales most people had (I think end of 2018/beginning of 2019 I think it was). For several thousand files (videos + photos).

Not that I ever made "that" many sales there, but after about 2020, just diminishing returns for time/effort put into uploading, with the constant "good news" e-mails from them. Stopped uploading I think around 2022, because it just didn't seem worth it any more.

Right now maybe make (on average) between $50-$100 usd/month from them. (And I think how they've structured the royalites that means they are making gross about $700-$800).