Author Topic: "I'm a single mother. My son and I will literally have nothing to eat." (Read 13337 times)

Justanotherphotographer · « **on:** June 04, 2020, 13:59 »

"I'm a single mother. I lost 2/3 of my income. My son and I will literally have nothing to eat."

A post from the Shutterstock forum.
I don't have the words for how I feel about SS management right now.

MicroVet · « **Reply #1 on:** June 04, 2020, 14:21 »

I'm at risk of suffering the same situation as our fellow artist. Currently scrabbling to reinforce my presence in other areas but far from guarantee any return greater than I have now. And certainly not fast enough.

The wort part is that I beleve that after the January 1st reset, SS will drop the $0,10 minimum royalty and effectivelly implement the percentages for each level.

It just doesn't make any sense defining levels and then create a flat rate that make people in the higher levels earn the same than those on the lower levels. Prepare yourself to be earning $0.04 per download.

The drop won't be 60 to 70%. It wil be 90% in most cases.

cobalt · « **Reply #2 on:** June 04, 2020, 16:53 »

I saw that. Heartbreaking.

Justanotherphotographer · « **Reply #3 on:** June 05, 2020, 09:32 »

I wonder how reading this makes management, or even their social media handlers, feel? Do they even realise there are real people on the other end of this?

mj007 · « **Reply #4 on:** June 05, 2020, 09:34 »

SS Wall Street stock is going up today...I wonder why...

charged · « **Reply #5 on:** June 05, 2020, 09:37 »

Quote from: mj007 on June 05, 2020, 09:34

SS Wall Street stock is going up today...I wonder why...

You don't understand the stock market at the moment. Most stocks are moving at a value of 0.8 correlation. Versus, 0.35 in normal times. Meaning most stocks are moving up and down fairly correlated to each other at the moment. It has nothing to do with the fundamentals of each stock. Basically stocks move based upon news that are related to the reopening of the US economy. Also watch any stock over days and weeks and months, they move up and down. That is just what stocks do. Even absent news that would move a stock.

Noedelhap · « **Reply #6 on:** June 05, 2020, 10:00 »

Quote from: Justanotherphotographer on June 05, 2020, 09:32

I wonder how reading this makes management, or even their social media handlers, feel? Do they even realise there are real people on the other end of this?

It's hard for management to determine whether we are real people if they themselves are basically heartless robots devoid of emotion or guilt.

H2O · « **Reply #7 on:** June 05, 2020, 10:13 »

This is what happens when the wealthy move in on the talent and steal the assets.

American companies are renowned for this in the UK, over the years they have moved into loads of companies and asset stripped them.

Their usual exit plan after a couple of years, is once they have taken everything that isn't nailed down, they flog off what is left to the management and a couple of years later the company goes bust. The American company Blackstone did this to a Company called Southern Care Homes, they sold all the freeholds and then sold the company having walked away with many millions. When they had to pay rents the business became unsustainable, by that time Blackstone was long gone.

The British Government ended up having to bail them out, otherwise they would have had over twenty thousand old people with nowhere to live.

We have a long list of American Companies doing this over here in the UK and our Government does nothing about it, and this is apart from them offshoring the tax they owe, like Amazon and Google.

Personally I believe that the American system of Capitalism seems to have become corrupted, mostly they act like the Mafia in a Martin Scorsese film.

Shutterstock shareholders are doing exactly the same at the moment, they are asset stripping the creatives.

It is the ordinary people who's lives they destroy that is the real travesty.

Firn · « **Reply #8 on:** June 05, 2020, 10:25 »

Quote from: Justanotherphotographer on June 05, 2020, 09:32

I wonder how reading this makes management, or even their social media handlers, feel? Do they even realise there are real people on the other end of this?

They will never see it. I think for a long time Kate has been the only admin to even go on the forum and I doubt she looks at even half of these posts. And seeing how she is most likely also the one responsible for the banning of contributors who voiced their negative opinion too loudly, I honestly doubt she is a very nice or caring person....probably got a nice fat sale raise at the beginning of the year too.

Justanotherphotographer · « **Reply #9 on:** June 05, 2020, 10:40 »

Quote from: Firn on June 05, 2020, 10:25

They will never see it...

They will if it's all over social media...

Clair Voyant · « **Reply #10 on:** June 05, 2020, 10:56 »

Quote from: Firn on June 05, 2020, 10:25

Quote from: Justanotherphotographer on June 05, 2020, 09:32
I wonder how reading this makes management, or even their social media handlers, feel? Do they even realise there are real people on the other end of this?

They will never see it. I think for a long time Kate has been the only admin to even go on the forum and I doubt she looks at even half of these posts. And seeing how she is most likely also the one responsible for the banning of contributors who voiced their negative opinion too loudly, I honestly doubt she is a very nice or caring person....probably got a nice fat sale raise at the beginning of the year too.

mayber "Kate" is only a moniker that is only there to serve the reply aspect of all forums etc. Easy enough to do and more common than you think.

Lizard · « **Reply #11 on:** June 05, 2020, 11:03 »

Quote from: Firn on June 05, 2020, 10:25

Quote from: Justanotherphotographer on June 05, 2020, 09:32
I wonder how reading this makes management, or even their social media handlers, feel? Do they even realise there are real people on the other end of this?

They will never see it. I think for a long time Kate has been the only admin to even go on the forum and I doubt she looks at even half of these posts. And seeing how she is most likely also the one responsible for the banning of contributors who voiced their negative opinion too loudly, I honestly doubt she is a very nice or caring person....probably got a nice fat sale raise at the beginning of the year too.

She is as important at SS as a traffic light in GTA.

Firn · « **Reply #12 on:** June 05, 2020, 12:59 »

Quote from: Lizard on June 05, 2020, 11:03

She is as important at SS as a traffic light in GTA.

We don't know what she does and what her task are though. Surely just being a forum admin can't be all? She literally doesn't do more than 5 posts a week and questions and PMs towards her stay unanswered. Unless her working hours are like 3 minutes a day only, she must surely have some other tasks at SS? At least that's what I always assumed, as she is so inactive on the forum that I can't really imagine that that's her actual job. Always assumed it's just a side-task.

trabuco · « **Reply #13 on:** June 05, 2020, 14:08 »

Companies are not humans.

No feelings.

rcnyc · « **Reply #14 on:** June 05, 2020, 14:15 »

Quote from: H2O on June 05, 2020, 10:13

Personally I believe that the American system of Capitalism seems to have become corrupted, mostly they act like the Mafia in a Martin Scorsese film.

Everything that you say is true about American companies but I take exception with you calling this "American style of capitalism."

It's not only not American, it's not capitalist. What you're talking about is neoliberalism, which has its roots in Ayn Rand (a Russian) and was introduced into both the US and the UK via Reaganomics and Thatcherism in the 1980s, then later propagandized via Rupert Murdoch media. Neoliberalism also took hold in many countries, but not to the extreme as it has in the US. (See David Harvey's "A Brief History of Neoliberalism.")

Neoliberalism has been such a deeply entrenched part of UK politics that it was neoliberals that drove the Brexit movement. The idea was to free UK companies from the EU, which is staunchly anti-neoliberal and was trying to reign in abuses via heavy regulation. This was what was meant by "gaining our sovereignty back." They didn't mean it in a political but business sense, as in neoliberal corporations gaining their right to practice business free of EU restrictions.

Zero Talent · « **Reply #15 on:** June 05, 2020, 15:12 »

Quote from: H2O on June 05, 2020, 10:13

This is what happens when the wealthy move in on the talent and steal the assets.

American companies are renowned for this in the UK, over the years they have moved into loads of companies and asset stripped them.

Their usual exit plan after a couple of years, is once they have taken everything that isn't nailed down, they flog off what is left to the management and a couple of years later the company goes bust. The American company Blackstone did this to a Company called Southern Care Homes, they sold all the freeholds and then sold the company having walked away with many millions. When they had to pay rents the business became unsustainable, by that time Blackstone was long gone.

The British Government ended up having to bail them out, otherwise they would have had over twenty thousand old people with nowhere to live.

We have a long list of American Companies doing this over here in the UK and our Government does nothing about it, and this is apart from them offshoring the tax they owe, like Amazon and Google.

Personally I believe that the American system of Capitalism seems to have become corrupted, mostly they act like the Mafia in a Martin Scorsese film.

Shutterstock shareholders are doing exactly the same at the moment, they are asset stripping the creatives.

It is the ordinary people who's lives they destroy that is the real travesty.

It's called crony-capitalism and it's a perversion of Capitalism as it should be.

It's a perversion created by government interference in the economy, by regulations enacted to protect the sponsors of the government from too much internal and external competition. The lack of competition leads to pseudo-monopolies and price gauging.
These days, it is even meant to directly protect the wealth of the people running the government and their private businesses.
One of the most glaring recent examples of government overreach is a regulation dedicated to penalize private companies "daring" to label presidential statements as inaccurate.
That's not Capitalism as it should be.

DallasP · « **Reply #16 on:** June 05, 2020, 15:30 »

Quote from: mj007 on June 05, 2020, 09:34

SS Wall Street stock is going up today...I wonder why...

Increased dividend. But, shitterstock is still literally a crappy stock. lol.

morfon · « **Reply #17 on:** June 05, 2020, 16:09 »

I really don't understand this attitude.

I'm a fellow SS contributor who's also affected by this cut of royalty, but i still fail to see how SS is responsible for the current economic hardships of that alleged single mother or anyone else here. SS is a business not a charity. We are not employees, we are just contracted freelancers, and SS as an organization has zero responsibility towards us. They never made any promises and you are free to terminate your contract any time. The only reason you don't is because the rest of the agencies are just as crap or worse. A few agencies who are committed to fair trade, like pond5 or alamy, don't sell sh*, so it doesn't matter that they give you 40 to 60% of nothing. SS remained the only big one that actually sells and now it's gone too. I don't count istock/getty. The business landscape keeps shifting.

Let's face it: creating stock is a skill of very little added value, at least according to the market. No one cares how long it took you to learn photography and how much you spent on gear. Photography is extremely hard to sell even outside stock, otherwise we wouldn't bother selling for 20 cents a pop. As for me, i just stopped uploading and don't care any more.

It's not SS management's mistake that the single mother failed to obtain more marketable skills. We are all free to move on. Why would you rely on a single source of income, especially if it's known to be very unreliable?

tpack · « **Reply #18 on:** June 05, 2020, 16:42 »

Quote from: morfon on June 05, 2020, 16:09

I really don't understand this attitude.

I'm a fellow SS contributor who's also affected by this cut of royalty, but i still fail to see how SS is responsible for the current economic hardships of that alleged single mother or anyone else here. SS is a business not a charity. We are not employees, we are just contracted freelancers, and SS as an organization has zero responsibility towards us. They never made any promises and you are free to terminate your contract any time. The only reason you don't is because the rest of the agencies are just as crap or worse. A few agencies who are committed to fair trade, like pond5 or alamy, don't sell sh*, so it doesn't matter that they give you 40 to 60% of nothing. SS remained the only big one that actually sells and now it's gone too. I don't count istock/getty. The business landscape keeps shifting.

Let's face it: creating stock is a skill of very little added value, at least according to the market. No one cares how long it took you to learn photography and how much you spent on gear. Photography is extremely hard to sell even outside stock, otherwise we wouldn't bother selling for 20 cents a pop. As for me, i just stopped uploading and don't care any more.

It's not SS management's mistake that the single mother failed to obtain more marketable skills. We are all free to move on. Why would you rely on a single source of income, especially if it's known to be very unreliable?

Stan Pavlovsky ... is that you?

Shelma1 · « **Reply #19 on:** June 05, 2020, 17:20 »

Pavlovsky and Oringer were happy to tell people they know personally that they could leave and go find another job if they didn't like what SS was doing in China. Do you think they care about contributors they've never met?

morfon · « **Reply #20 on:** June 05, 2020, 17:23 »

Quote from: tpack on June 05, 2020, 16:42

Stan Pavlovsky ... is that you?

I wish. It may sound like that, but no, it's what i actually think.

Noedelhap · « **Reply #21 on:** June 05, 2020, 17:49 »

Quote from: morfon on June 05, 2020, 16:09

I really don't understand this attitude.

I'm a fellow SS contributor who's also affected by this cut of royalty, but i still fail to see how SS is responsible for the current economic hardships of that alleged single mother or anyone else here. SS is a business not a charity. We are not employees, we are just contracted freelancers, and SS as an organization has zero responsibility towards us. They never made any promises and you are free to terminate your contract any time. The only reason you don't is because the rest of the agencies are just as crap or worse. A few agencies who are committed to fair trade, like pond5 or alamy, don't sell sh*, so it doesn't matter that they give you 40 to 60% of nothing. SS remained the only big one that actually sells and now it's gone too. I don't count istock/getty. The business landscape keeps shifting.

Let's face it: creating stock is a skill of very little added value, at least according to the market. No one cares how long it took you to learn photography and how much you spent on gear. Photography is extremely hard to sell even outside stock, otherwise we wouldn't bother selling for 20 cents a pop. As for me, i just stopped uploading and don't care any more.

It's not SS management's mistake that the single mother failed to obtain more marketable skills. We are all free to move on. Why would you rely on a single source of income, especially if it's known to be very unreliable?

I don't like to brush you off with a 'oh you must be Stan Pavlovsky' comment, because there is some truth to your comment. If you look at it completely objectively, I'd even say you're right.

But the problem isn't that we're wondering why Shutterstock does this to their contributors. We all know any agency or commercial company is only in it for the profit, not for charity or goodwill. However, that shouldn't hold us back from calling out hypocrisy, greed or lack of ethics in business, when CEO's/managers/board decide to grab a bigger piece of the pie and insult us by pretending it's a good thing. They may have zero responsibility to us, it doesn't excuse them from being completely careless a-holes.

We're also angry about the short 6-day notice, about the financial issues this may create for us and the kick in the teeth during an already tough time. Maybe we should've seen it coming, but the anger and backlash is justified.

As to not caring and just stopping uploading: some people don't have that luxury. Because of the corona pandemic, some people have been fired from their day job or lost freelance gigs.
Surely the financial situation of this single mother (or anyone) isn't Shutterstock's responsibility (besides, being a single mom doesn't make her situation more pitiful than some random photographer without kids), but it does illustrate capitalism at its worst.

We may not be able to stop this greed or change the world (or Shutterstock), but we can still let our voices be heard. We'll have to learn to live with this new reality, but I think speaking out loud is still better than staying silent.

Shelma1 · « **Reply #22 on:** June 05, 2020, 18:04 »

Quote from: morfon on June 05, 2020, 16:09

I really don't understand this attitude.

I'm a fellow SS contributor who's also affected by this cut of royalty, but i still fail to see how SS is responsible for the current economic hardships of that alleged single mother or anyone else here. SS is a business not a charity. We are not employees, we are just contracted freelancers, and SS as an organization has zero responsibility towards us. They never made any promises and you are free to terminate your contract any time. The only reason you don't is because the rest of the agencies are just as crap or worse. A few agencies who are committed to fair trade, like pond5 or alamy, don't sell sh*, so it doesn't matter that they give you 40 to 60% of nothing. SS remained the only big one that actually sells and now it's gone too. I don't count istock/getty. The business landscape keeps shifting.

Let's face it: creating stock is a skill of very little added value, at least according to the market. No one cares how long it took you to learn photography and how much you spent on gear. Photography is extremely hard to sell even outside stock, otherwise we wouldn't bother selling for 20 cents a pop. As for me, i just stopped uploading and don't care any more.

It's not SS management's mistake that the single mother failed to obtain more marketable skills. We are all free to move on. Why would you rely on a single source of income, especially if it's known to be very unreliable?

Looking at your previous posts, it sounds like you had a tiny portfolio and stopped uploading. So yeah, this change doesn’t affect you much. But there are many people who make a full-time living from this, and others, like me, who make a five figure income from this every year and are currently unemployed and were unfortunately counting on this to help us make it through a lean time, during a pandemic, until we get our day jobs back.

You sound very much like an attorney who posted a similar sentiment on the Ss forums. Like him, you seem to have a complete lack of empathy for anyone who decided to make illustration, videography or photography their full time career.

cathyslife · « **Reply #23 on:** June 05, 2020, 18:30 »

Quote from: morfon on June 05, 2020, 16:09

I really don't understand this attitude.

I'm a fellow SS contributor who's also affected by this cut of royalty, but i still fail to see how SS is responsible for the current economic hardships of that alleged single mother or anyone else here. SS is a business not a charity. We are not employees, we are just contracted freelancers, and SS as an organization has zero responsibility towards us. They never made any promises and you are free to terminate your contract any time. The only reason you don't is because the rest of the agencies are just as crap or worse. A few agencies who are committed to fair trade, like pond5 or alamy, don't sell sh*, so it doesn't matter that they give you 40 to 60% of nothing. SS remained the only big one that actually sells and now it's gone too. I don't count istock/getty. The business landscape keeps shifting.

Let's face it: creating stock is a skill of very little added value, at least according to the market. No one cares how long it took you to learn photography and how much you spent on gear. Photography is extremely hard to sell even outside stock, otherwise we wouldn't bother selling for 20 cents a pop. As for me, i just stopped uploading and don't care any more.

It's not SS management's mistake that the single mother failed to obtain more marketable skills. We are all free to move on. Why would you rely on a single source of income, especially if it's known to be very unreliable?

I feel the same way, but know it’s going to be an unpopular opinion, judging by all the plusses and sympathy.

That single mother had money to buy camera equipment and/or a good cellphone to take photos. She has a kid (or kids). While I certainly think this SS move is disgusting and I know lots of people are losing money (I have too), come on. We have all seen it coming for years! If a person was banking on microstock to feed their family, they must be living under a rock. For months, people should have been lining up plan Bs, Cs, or whatever. It’s called personal responsibility, something it seems no one wants to take anymore. No, it’s not SS’s fault a single mother can’t feed her family. For gosh sakes, these companies have been greedy for years!

cathyslife · « **Reply #24 on:** June 05, 2020, 18:35 »

Quote from: Noedelhap on June 05, 2020, 17:49

Quote from: morfon on June 05, 2020, 16:09
I really don't understand this attitude.

I'm a fellow SS contributor who's also affected by this cut of royalty, but i still fail to see how SS is responsible for the current economic hardships of that alleged single mother or anyone else here. SS is a business not a charity. We are not employees, we are just contracted freelancers, and SS as an organization has zero responsibility towards us. They never made any promises and you are free to terminate your contract any time. The only reason you don't is because the rest of the agencies are just as crap or worse. A few agencies who are committed to fair trade, like pond5 or alamy, don't sell sh*, so it doesn't matter that they give you 40 to 60% of nothing. SS remained the only big one that actually sells and now it's gone too. I don't count istock/getty. The business landscape keeps shifting.

Let's face it: creating stock is a skill of very little added value, at least according to the market. No one cares how long it took you to learn photography and how much you spent on gear. Photography is extremely hard to sell even outside stock, otherwise we wouldn't bother selling for 20 cents a pop. As for me, i just stopped uploading and don't care any more.

It's not SS management's mistake that the single mother failed to obtain more marketable skills. We are all free to move on. Why would you rely on a single source of income, especially if it's known to be very unreliable?

I don't like to brush you off with a 'oh you must be Stan Pavlovsky' comment, because there is some truth to your comment. If you look at it completely objectively, I'd even say you're right.

But the problem isn't that we're wondering why Shutterstock does this to their contributors. We all know any agency or commercial company is only in it for the profit, not for charity or goodwill. However, that shouldn't hold us back from calling out hypocrisy, greed or lack of ethics in business, when CEO's/managers/board decide to grab a bigger piece of the pie and insult us by pretending it's a good thing. They may have zero responsibility to us, it doesn't excuse them from being completely careless a-holes.

We're also angry about the short 6-day notice, about the financial issues this may create for us and the kick in the teeth during an already tough time. Maybe we should've seen it coming, but the anger and backlash is justified.

As to not caring and just stopping uploading: some people don't have that luxury. Because of the corona pandemic, some people have been fired from their day job or lost freelance gigs.
Surely the financial situation of this single mother (or anyone) isn't Shutterstock's responsibility (besides, being a single mom doesn't make her situation more pitiful than some random photographer without kids), but it does illustrate capitalism at its worst.

We may not be able to stop this greed or change the world (or Shutterstock), but we can still let our voices be heard. We'll have to learn to live with this new reality, but I think speaking out loud is still better than staying silent.

I agree with everything you say. Playing the “single mother can’t feed her kid” card for sympathy is a tad overboard. And yes, SS is capitalism and greed at its worst. TONS of people are having a hard time because of this. Some won’t be able to pay their mortgage, or medical bills, or whatever. It’s all a clusterf*ck.

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Author Topic: "I'm a single mother. My son and I will literally have nothing to eat." (Read 13337 times)

Justanotherphotographer

MicroVet

cobalt

Justanotherphotographer

mj007

charged

Noedelhap

H2O

Firn

Justanotherphotographer

Clair Voyant

Lizard

Firn

trabuco

rcnyc

Zero Talent

DallasP

morfon

tpack

Shelma1

morfon

Noedelhap

Shelma1

cathyslife

cathyslife

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