I'm a quality over quantity type of producer so micro is not working out for me anymore. Something did change drastically of which will never come back again.

I'd agree. We have become producers of a commidity. At one time we made useful work, creations. Micro has never been art, but it has been an art to create good Microstock. Not any more. It's now all about who's got the biggest heap of trash for the lowest price. It's disguisting and I'm embarassed to tell people I work this field. I don't

is this the talk therapy group for microstockers? or the psychiatric ward for depressions?
 
Up and downs are as normal as anything. I am from Africa, I can tell you about the downs. But now I am happy as a queen. Me and my entire family live on five dollars a day, and microstocks are the very big chance to have a decent living. Life is just great!!!

Sorry for the Trump people, they got the shortest straw right now. But after rain there is sunshine, believe me.

$5/ day - unlike
I have been to Africa, and you could probably have the same standard of living for about 1/2 of US costs, unless of course you live in a shithole like Somalia

Jav i m in the same boat as you. Until recently i didn't worry about the increase in content because i knew that if i put the time and work in my files somehow they were finding their way to the top and most importantly stood there by merit and not because of some algorithm . I agree that you must expand your port and work harder for your money but not whit random generated sht ,but with those who  produce good content to. And if  i lose  money because someone  had  bather  illustration than me well that was fair .
This is absolutely not.

Shutterstock seems to want quantity over quality these days.

So many contributors are saying that it isn't worth their time to be working to create quality images, just to get them buried in the search. It feels as if the days of 'quality rising to the top' are long gone, (along with many talented contributors). I guess things will only change if buyers start complaining about things.

I've seen sudden changes recently that have put my portfolio out of favor, so maybe the next change will be to my advantage? Maybe there is a rotation system? Who know's what's happening these days? Every day is an adventure in the Microstock industry!

I'm an digital Illustrator (raster, no vectors) and I put a very special care on each work, so my production is slow. But in the new system the effort on search of quality is proving to be unprofitable. If the microstock agencies no longer want to offer quality,  What type of client they pretend to attract. Only facebookers and bloggers?

I'm not much of an illustrator but with what I do and photography, I'd say you're right. The point of return for models or planned more expensive shoots has passed, for most of us. Expense is outdistancing income or returns. Somebody from long ago, calls it Micropayment Photography. That's the micro and the idea was make up the low pay with volume.

Volume is down, payment is mostly lower by lower commissions, SS has held that up at least. But others dropped commissions and earnings money, dropped commissions, while sales dropped. SS sales have dropped and I don't think it's just old people or the search or any specific group. It's all of us because of competition, not quality. And all of us because of numbers instead of quality.

We can't make up the low pay with sales volume anymore. We can't beat the competition with quality anymore. Agencies don't pay us what they used to either. I don't think the search caused all this, I think the whole state and condition of Microstock is the cause.

micro is quantity...always been...those who consider micro quality has never browsed an high end rm agency like aurora or gallery stock....stocksy with 5 dollar rf has a very good quality, much better and more artistic than micro.
so yes to survive u need to upload lot of different content, niche don't work or only extremely niche photos.....this is micro now...stop complaining and work...if not close your account so there is more money for us....

i have micro rm( alamy) rm high end files...i always believed differentiation worked well...probably i would have earned a lot more with some files, had i uploaded them to micro instead of an RM HIGH END AGENCy, but right now i have built a good portfolio who earn me much more than micro.

if you shoot micro for a living you need to produce a lot, have low cost and live in a poor country.

Quote from: Bauman on January 29, 2017, 05:54

Quote from: jav on January 29, 2017, 05:06

I'm an digital Illustrator (raster, no vectors) and I put a very special care on each work, so my production is slow. But in the new system the effort on search of quality is proving to be unprofitable. If the microstock agencies no longer want to offer quality,  What type of client they pretend to attract. Only facebookers and bloggers?

Same here ... I'm photographer and i upload 300/400 high quality images every year ... Great income for 6 years and from July 2016 down down down ...

From 2004 to 2015 Shutterstock has 100.000 active contributors (avg 10.000 every years) ... in 2016 64000 new contributors, but perhaps 55.000 have only crappy illustration or snapshot photos ... see the "new search" ... what buyers download this low quality works ? I upload to 10 agencies an

d the worst performance in 2016 compared to 2015 is from SS.

more and more will join....in "secret country" where i live the salary medium is  u know how much?
i tell you 200 dollar with current exchange...there are people working at mcdonald for example who earn120 dollar right now....so for an "*" guy,...uploading tons of photos for free and earn 300 400 dollar is still a lot of money compared to people working at mcdonald or bar or supermarket or shop.....
that's why you see so many photographer joining micro or this country...it's cheap,...cost are very low...people  love being photographed for free for example, so plenty of model available for free...there are big studio who cost nothing...i pay 8 dollar hours..


so a shoot with model start from 20 to 100 dollar ....same shooting in western world cost 1000 minimum. u see  the difference?

Yes I do, perfectly, make good sense.

@noodle: Please, don�t call Somalia a "shithole country". In Somalia are living human beings like in your country.
 
The minimum wage in my country is aroung 100 US Dollar per month. Check some African income figures from the World Bank. Don�t compare sub saharan countries with South Africa.

No Josephine all humans live in shitholes because that's what humans do they find somewhere to live and turn it in to a shithole.

One group of humans is no more virtuous than the other you all wreck the planet...


Cats however do not.... and neither do the other residents of the planet; humans are just bad neighbors

Seems to me that the real damage to sales is being done by the change in 'search'. When a potential buyer clicks on one of your images, they used to be offered similar images (based on keywords) from YOUR portfolio (same artist). Now the offering of alternatives is often not from your portfolio and is a pixel-based/color-pattern similarity search. If I were a buyer who had searched using keywords, I'd be seriously annoyed at SS offering these pixel-based alternatives because often they're totally irrelevant.

Thats right! and to add insult to injury the alternatives are often irrelevant.

Since mentioned, I must have missed them, but I'm from Serbia and decently active in photographic communities and I've yet to come across such a productions companies, look for photographers or even anyone mentioning them. There are individuals here and there and that's all.

in serbia there are some in stocksy....very big and good quality work...in micro i don't know...russia is full of user, maybe one band or more, who produce 100000 images year, mostly same stuff...for example food photography top view samples are all over and come mostly from ukraine russia, all same stuff....
ukraine is full of big company who produce from good quality to low quality...most of time they use and even buy photo from other people working for them.
cost of production are so low they can upload thousand of files...there is a website database of shutter stock...of 100 millions
probably one third nowadays is coming from these countries plus thailand.
i don't have nothing against this, i work also in ukraine, but i just explain why we are experiencing such a growth in number of files.

Well, they definitely "adjusted" things again. My new images have stopped selling completely and sales are going down instead of up, as they should this time of year.

It's sad.

anyway strange sunday with 30 dollar with a 28 extend sale...good see extended again in january. good feeling fro a great february. i'm planning adding 2000 images per month. se if and how improve.

I feel its a complete waste adding new images at the moment since they will probably just disappear to the land of nobody. Once they've sorted out this buyer problem mentioned above it might be worth the effort.