Considering the current market position and contributors leaving IS/FT, everyone is happy with how respectful the former underdog SS behaves towards its contributors. And I share in their happiness, but something tells me that one day, SS will become corrupted with greed and starts to screw its own contributors. Think about it, Istock was once what Shutterstock is now, and Istock totally lost control of their contributors and customer traffic, due to mismanagement and greed.

What do you think?

Personally, I believe that SS is quite different to IS (cannot speak for FT as I have no dealings with them other than as a [very occasional] buyer). You have to look at the very welcome demise of IS in relation to events that have turned them into the most unpopular microstock library out there. Getty takes a massive responsibility in that regard when they acquired the company. If you look back to the days before then, there did seem to be a real community spirit amongst the contributors - but they were the early adopters of microstock and everything was new and possible. Since those heady days (and I only go back to 2006 with direct contact with the company) the Getty deal, the power they gave incompetent admins (and still do) and the clawing back of royalties (remember last Christmas/New Year) and the insipid and corrosive (at times spiteful) relationship with their contributors - even Exclusives - the bubble has burst. And if you look at the most recent sobering trends - their definitely doomed. Someone stated yesterday in this place they won't be around this time next year.

Will SS become as evil at IS ? - I don't think so - and if they were to - they would have to commit around a dozen complete and really serious ****ups to even get close to where iFlop is today. Saying that, they could get there a little faster though if they employed some of the current administration morons rearranging the deck chairs oblivious to their demise.

iStock and Shutterstock have felt different to me from the beginning.  iStock was always locked down, changing the submission rules frequently and to my mind arbitrarily.  Their emphasis on exclusive suppliers at the expense of independents rubbed me the wrong way, as did their painful upload process (made so much worse with the introduction of their controlled vocabulary) and their specific and changing demands regarding releases.  Their community always felt a little cultish, and their control unsettling.  Shutterstock was the opposite: more relaxed, more accepting, less contentious.

Yeah, it could all change.  Maybe Shutterstock will sell out one day, and the new owners will abandon suppliers' good will for short term gains as iStock's did.  But I'm going to hope that won't happen, and trust in Jon and his management team to look to enlightened self-interest, assuming their basic decency isn't enough to keep them from following iStock into the abyss.

SS has been on a different trajectory from istock for a long time now, so I'd think they will remain so. When istock was wasting money on silly perks, swag, and an in-house masseuse, SS kept things simple and just offered simple services with no unnecessary junk. istock spent tons on "improvements" to the site that only caused more problems, while SS hasn't changed the site much at all over the years and everyone still loves it because it just works. SS adapts to changing standards (they were one of the first to accept EPS10 vector files) while istock remains the lone hold-out on EPS10. They just finished a big office renovation in their NYC headquarters, so that suggests the bank accounts are fairly healthy.

They're very different companies, on very different paths. That's not to say that someday SS might be in a very different position and change course, but right now it's hard to imagine them screwing themselves by screwing us. Right now, they're better than that.

Yes, I agree with these good people.  SS feels like a steady ship as long  as Jon Oringer is at the helm.  iStock has always felt too susceptible to changes in the weather.

In the words of Katherine Hepburn, I feel that SS is yar.

No! I dont think so, they have seen that it doesnt lead anywhere, just troubles, bad publicity, etc.

Don't believe the hype! Every business has a botton line and that is to keep themselves sustainable once they are established. They will do what it takes to keep themselves sustainable. That's just business!

Who says that they are not already as "evil"?  

SS did a good job of spreading the subscription model to all the other sites. Also, they supposedly only pay about 30%. Those aren't necessarily things to brag about. There's things to like about SS (mostly money), but I don't really hold them as a shining model of what a micro site should be.

I agree with both of you on the points above.

It does not make SS saints because they have the lucky opportunity of benefiting from IS's greed.  If you are fortunate to be on one of SS's healthy servers sales are good. I think SS has a long way to go.  To start they need to have consistent fair reviews and they need to do something about their mangled server and search engine problems.  And I think most sites participate in their own version of best match disease to increase sales including SS.

It looks to me like they are about to implode. SS continues with the patchworked and inadequate repairs; as the database, mangled search engine, best match disease and display problems grow . Does any of the previous show respect for the submitters? I think this post in a bug thread says it all, they are happy with a site that is running on 3 pistons and they are not too concerned with the previous problems if they are not affecting their own bottom line.  As long as the income generated from our images is good for them, they are not upset if these bugs affect some but not all of its submitters.

http://submit.shutterstock.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=114196&start=150

Thanks for the updates.

We are looking into the duplicate images but this tends to be an issue that corrects itself. As far as we can see, it is not having any effect on the search experience but if you notice otherwise, please alert us and let us know which search term you're concerned about so that we can investigate further.

As for images missing from search, please continue to provide updates on this thread. Having a few extra eyes on the situation would be a great help.

That being said, we believe the fix we've put in place is beginning to show results. It appears that many files have returned to search.

Thanks!

SS's coffers continue to grow and Jon and his staff are enjoying the $$$, yet when was the last time they gave submitters a raise?

SS has been on a different trajectory from istock for a long time now, so I'd think they will remain so. When istock was wasting money on silly perks, swag, and an in-house masseuse, SS kept things simple and just offered simple services with no unnecessary junk. istock spent tons on "improvements" to the site that only caused more problems, while SS hasn't changed the site much at all over the years and everyone still loves it because it just works. SS adapts to changing standards (they were one of the first to accept EPS10 vector files) while istock remains the lone hold-out on EPS10. They just finished a big office renovation in their NYC headquarters, so that suggests the bank accounts are fairly healthy.

They're very different companies, on very different paths. That's not to say that someday SS might be in a very different position and change course, but right now it's hard to imagine them screwing themselves by screwing us. Right now, they're better than that.

SS has in-house masseuses and free breakfasts.

SS's coffers continue to grow and Jon and his staff are enjoying the $$$, yet when was the last time they gave submitters a raise?

I suspect that Jon takes a more holistic view regarding our incomes. I don't know about you but my earnings from SS are up roughly 40% from a year ago with very little growth in my portfolio. Even more from 2 years ago. That counts as 'a raise' in my books.

The growth has come from adding new products and increasing the customer base and that makes for a far more stable business model than Istock's crude policy of ever-increasing prices (which is obviously unsustainable). I don't blame SS for not increasing prices in today's climate and clearly the business plan is working very nicely.

Back to the OP. In Jon we trust. I think we'll be just fine unless and until he sells the business.

They're really paying only 20-30% for ODs and single sales. I didn't do the calculations for ELs, sub royalties are supposed to be a lot lower on average. I still think SS is the best site, has more traffic than any other, but when it comes to royalties they're below average.

What it the average, then? At iSTock it's probably 20% overall but nearer 16% for independents, at Fotolia it's probably less than that. So among the three market leaders SS would be above average. The other sites are far less important.

SS has in-house masseuses and free breakfasts.

No way... Really?

Well if that's true, I'd hope that SS would cut the perks if things got to the point where they needed to slow spending. Before they cut contributor rates. The real kick in the teeth of the istock cuts was they they made no internal cuts to save money and relied solely on contributors to absorb the cut-backs.

Soon or latter,yes I'm sure it's gonna happen. It's only a matter of time like the rest of the big companies around the globe.
C'mon do you think they have sympathy for us.

As long as SS is happy to only make money hand over fist with 20-30% payout to contributors they can avoid making any evil changes. If they start losing market share to something like stinkstock or they get bought out then all bets are off. I agree if IS was still going it alone they could have continued w/o any of the unsustainable whining and commission cuts they have made.