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Author Topic: Concrete demands from SS regarding new pay structure  (Read 7964 times)

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marthamarks

« Reply #25 on: May 28, 2020, 19:32 »
+1
Why is everyone trying to "demand" ss to do anything? Hey SS thanks for raping us, but could you ease up on the hair pulling while you do so, pretty please?

Don't try to deal with these crooks, abandon them.

Amen.


« Reply #26 on: May 28, 2020, 19:39 »
+4
Here's a way to play with what happens with different royalty rates in the new system and compare with your current flat-rate subscription royalty

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1d3zG0P4zkNtHU5W15kszacAmr6rjc3JU3vRrmdZSCKM/edit?usp=sharing

I've only allowed edits on the three input fields - royalty rate, new minimum sub amount and current flat-rate sub royalty (nothing is error checked so you'll get daft answers if you enter daft numbers)

In the prices section I've shown all three payment options (monthly, annual paid monthly & annual up front). It's the last one that's creating problems for Shutterstock - and that they're trying to dump on us by cutting royalties

Ignore the fact that they must have been making out like bandits if they only paid us 38 cents a pop for the 10 and 50 per month subscriptions. I'm guessing not many people buy those or they wouldn't be adding the new cheap options for annual paid up front. Also ignore the dangled bait of potentially higher royalties on those small-volume subs (which aren't really subs at all; I assume they created them to increase their profit compared to the On Demand items)

The real story is in the 10 cent sub royalties for huge portions (not all, I understand) of our sub downloads. The changes in the global market they obliquely refer to are I assume them losing subscribers and their idea to woo them back is cut prices.

The cut-price sub royalties allow them to offer the annual up front payment discounts without worrying over losses if customers download too much. If anyone remembers SS's early days, they'd change prices and then wait about a month to set the new royalty rates - with 25 a day (not 750 a month as it now is) they had 10 weekend days that probably wouldn't get used as much and needed to see what actual download numbers looked like to be sure they set a rate they could afford to pay. Removing daily limits made managing that buffer of unused images harder, and there's no room to discount.

Bottom line for me is that our images are already licensed at rock bottom prices and if they keep undercutting other agencies with race-to-the-bottom price cuts, they will hurt all of us once the other agencies copy them.

Why do you think Adobe Stock has the same top-tier minimum 38 cent subscription royalty? It's not a coincidence.

Couple of tweets on this point - retweet if you can

https://twitter.com/joannsnover/status/1266221554209193986
https://twitter.com/joannsnover/status/1266222133018935296
« Last Edit: May 28, 2020, 23:39 by Jo Ann Snover »

« Reply #27 on: May 28, 2020, 20:07 »
0
Quote
     what should be the minimum baseline guarantee?
Choices: 15c, 20c, 25c, 30c, 33c

what??

No one can produce fresh quality for these prices

Even image factories will fail,
employees, running costs .., no way

Yes yes i know, msg can do that... good luck..


Uncle Pete

  • Great Place by a Great Lake - My Home Port
« Reply #28 on: May 28, 2020, 20:45 »
0

Why do you think Adobe Stock has a minimum 38 cent subscription royalty? It's not a coincidence.

They do? I thought it was 33 cents.

And the other question has always been, who's copying whom, and who's really driving the prices down. I don't know, but SS historically hasn't been the leader in slicing prices, at their own expense. This looks more like catch up to me? All the small agencies have been screwing us the best they can, and so have some big ones. Yet some people keep uploading to those places.

I've been pounding the desk shouting don't support the parasites, and what happens. "I'd rather make a little than make nothing." OK folks, not you have less because the race to the bottom is being won by the crooks and creepy little places that were fed images for years. SS is being forced down into the cesspool because artists have chosen to sell for less and less.

I see this as following, not leading.

« Reply #29 on: May 28, 2020, 21:45 »
+1
I was enjoying my what was supposed to be a raise in royalties and then a week or 2 later  their new reset every year massacre. Horrendous.
Why isn't the original founder speaking up? Anybody know him? I think we can never get beyond the slave mentality with some of these sites in the race to the bottom for us.
Where are the ideas about a collective stock image and video, etceteras site these days?
I've heard it talked about it before but, never seen it gain traction yet.
Anybody know more about a stock image video, similar digital content that we can all join and share our talents as a collective, or co-op, or some kind of stock agency where we all have a voice in our incomes and ways business is done? Thanks, Lee

« Reply #30 on: May 28, 2020, 22:07 »
+1
The original owner took his billion dollar stock option and left SS. Here is the fact..SS is the biggest and largest seller of stock photos. Most likely that is not going to change until some new technology comes along. They can and will set the new standard of stock prices. Yes we are getting screwed. Just wait until all the other sites start paying 10 cents per sell. You can quit stock and a lot of folks will. You can get 10-20 cents per sale in the near future. Learn to play the guitar. ...Buy SS wall street stock and short it....

« Reply #31 on: May 28, 2020, 22:49 »
0

Why do you think Adobe Stock has a minimum 38 cent subscription royalty? It's not a coincidence.


They do? I thought it was 33 cents.

And the other question has always been, who's copying whom, and who's really driving the prices down. I don't know, but SS historically hasn't been the leader in slicing prices, at their own expense. This looks more like catch up to me? All the small agencies have been screwing us the best they can, and so have some big ones. Yet some people keep uploading to those places.

I've been pounding the desk shouting don't support the parasites, and what happens. "I'd rather make a little than make nothing." OK folks, not you have less because the race to the bottom is being won by the crooks and creepy little places that were fed images for years. SS is being forced down into the cesspool because artists have chosen to sell for less and less.

I see this as following, not leading.

I think it was shutterstock who led the way. Shutterstock kept their prices low for over a decade in an effort to become the biggest stock supplier but the joke was on them not realizing others would follow with similarly low prices, creating expectations on the part of nearly all stock photo customers that prices would always be low. They can't put the genie back in the bottle and raise prices at this point, the market is saturated, so they need to cut somewhere and they think that if they could get people to accept 25 cents when they first started, why can't they accept 10 cents? For the corporate executives who dreamed this up, I'm sure they figure 10 cents isn't even much less than the 38 cents those in the soon to be old top tier make. They don't realize that there was a time when the volume of downloads even at that paltry 25 cents added up to decent money, but with the ever increasing size of shutterstock's portfolio it's harder and harder to make any money and this will make it impossible.

They planted the seeds of thier own demise. You can't blame the little guys who were just following suit, and probably won't be around much longer.

I don't think Adobe will follow suit. If stock photography becomes untenable, there will be a lot fewer people who will bother with Photoshop, since there are many stock shooters who don't shoot assignment work and fine art. As someone mentioned, they have many other sources of revenue, and hopefully this will keep them from following ss.

marthamarks

« Reply #32 on: May 28, 2020, 23:11 »
+1
Where are the ideas about a collective stock image and video, etceteras site these days?
I've heard it talked about it before but, never seen it gain traction yet.

Had you been active around here a few years ago, you would have lived through the Symbiostock experience. Many of us here spent a lot of time and money and effort building our own websites as part of a collective project. Some still have those sites, but I don't believe any of us have ever made back a tiny fraction of what we put into it.

We have been there and done that. We don't need lectures from someone who didn't give it a try back then.
« Last Edit: May 28, 2020, 23:29 by marthamarks »

« Reply #33 on: May 28, 2020, 23:35 »
+1

Why do you think Adobe Stock has a minimum 38 cent subscription royalty? It's not a coincidence.

They do? I thought it was 33 cents.

My mistake. Adobe has three subscription minimums, depending on lifetime downloads; 33, 36 and 38 cents.

Shutterstock has 4 - those three plus the 25 cent lowest tier.

The point stands though that when Adobe set up the rates for Adobe Stock (Fotolia's were different), they took care to at least match what Shutterstock paid.


 

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