Murdered Shutterstock Forum Refugee Thread

[Pacesetter]

'Murdered' is the appropriate description of the actions of the executive leadership of that place. The top dog is a callous, cunning, narcissistic hypocrit.

[Zero Talent]

'Murdered' is the appropriate description of the actions of the executive leadership of that place. The top dog is a callous, cunning, narcissistic hypocrit.

And yet, under his leadership, SS is doing better than ever. See the graph.

If your money would be at stake, you would want someone like him as the boss of your company 

But since it's not, it costs you nothing to call him names 

[cascoly]

Hardly anyone uses the SS forum..... Maybe the demise of the SS one will breathe some life into this.

logic alert
nobody goes there anymore; it's too crowded! - yogi berra

[Pacesetter]

But since it's not, it costs you nothing to call him names 

Oh goodness no, I wouldn't calll anyone names. I was just describing said person in a manner that is kind, generous, supportive and inclusive.

[Suspect]

'Murdered' is the appropriate description of the actions of the executive leadership of that place. The top dog is a callous, cunning, narcissistic hypocrit.

And yet, under his leadership, SS is doing better than ever. See the graph.

If your money would be at stake, you would want someone like him as the boss of your company 

But since it's not, it costs you nothing to call him names 

Mihai, contributors money is at stake, as contributors earnings are directly affected by Shutterstock leadership decisions/governance/style/culture.

[Zero Talent]

But since it's not, it costs you nothing to call him names 

Oh goodness no, I wouldn't calll anyone names. I was just describing said person in a manner that is kind, generous, supportive and inclusive.

The bottom line is that this CEO is doing a great job for the stakeholders (so far).
His job is not to be liked, his job is to maximize the return for his investors.
Yeah, some may call him names, but that means nothing.

I am certain he is fully aware of it. It means very little when hundreds of thousand contributors are still considering submitting or keeping their ports alive on the site. This vocal discontent of a few dozens of forum members means nothing. It's just a small collateral loss in the grand scheme of things. Noise.

If you would be a stakeholder, he would be your hero. 

[gnirtS]

Since it went public, SS sole and only goal is to the shareholders.
To that extent the CEO is delivering.  They'll be happy with that.

Whether its sustainable long term or slash and burn now will come back to haunt them medium term remains to be seen but im sure the shareholders are very happy with the CEO at present.

They've gambled, possibly correctly, that even slashing commissions they'll have more than enough content being supplied to keep going.

[Zero Talent]

Since it went public, SS sole and only goal is to the shareholders.
To that extent the CEO is delivering.  They'll be happy with that.

Whether its sustainable long term or slash and burn now will come back to haunt them medium term remains to be seen but im sure the shareholders are very happy with the CEO at present.

They've gambled, possibly correctly, that even slashing commissions they'll have more than enough content being supplied to keep going.

Exactly! Only future will tell if these decisions will be sustainable long term.

Like it or not, everything is working very well for the company, so far!

[For Real]

"That's what comes to mind when I read Shutterstock's sweet talk."

Shutter can use some work on its pillow talk...

[NuttyMoo]

I'm another SS refugee pitching my tent on the lawn and hoping I don't get detention or lines from now on.

[Noedelhap]

I've read so much about how contributors are being overlooked to make stakeholders happy. And how we can shout and scream and we're not being heard.
So here's my cunning plan:
Why don't we contributors ALL become stakeholders, massively buying SSTK stocks. And then dump 'em all at once. A classic pump 'n dump. They'll never know what hit 'em!

Or just become a stakeholder for profit and stop contributing. If you can't beat them, join them.

[OM]

Since Stan started, the stock price has tripled but I have to wonder how long the company can keep going on existing 'stock'. I just cannot imagine that the image factories will still be submitting large volumes of model-released/property-released work that costs real money to produce when the rewards to those contributors have also been cut back so much (even at Level 5/6 they can sometimes only get 10 or teen cents for a sub that was previously $0.38).

I don't doubt that all the insiders have made tons of money since 1st April 2020 with all those stock and options grants that they get to pump up their poverty-stricken salaries (joke ) and everything looks hunky-dory for the time being but how long can it last without quality commercial input from contributors? Only they know whether their business model (screw the suppliers and make the shareholders rich) is sustainable and if it's not, how long they've got before cashing out.

Perhaps SSTK is already being 'groomed' for sale to a 'financial investment' group.

[OM]

I've read so much about how contributors are being overlooked to make stakeholders happy. And how we can shout and scream and we're not being heard.
So here's my cunning plan:
Why don't we contributors ALL become stakeholders, massively buying SSTK stocks. And then dump 'em all at once. A classic pump 'n dump. They'll never know what hit 'em!

Or just become a stakeholder for profit and stop contributing. If you can't beat them, join them.

I think that pump and dump is illegal if you get caught!! 

Even if a load of contributors got together and bought stock with the intention of making money/hurting SS, I can almost guarantee that the amount of stock owned by all the contributors would be insignificant compared to the volumes owned by or pledged to insiders and would therefore be insufficient to affect the price (even if you could get every contributor's nose pointed in the same direction at once).

[Ackab]

Hello everyone, guess we'll have to meet here. Studio2, are you there?

[wds]

It would be interesting to know quantitatively how much the top stock producers earn for a given agency. For example, say the top 100 contributors earned the agency 50% of their revenue. In that example, they could form a united coalition that could actually have a say on pricing and royalty percentages. The question is how many of the "top earners" would it take to combine and form the beginnings of a stock producer coalition who would be able to yield power over the agency?

[Suspect]

It would be interesting to know quantitatively how much the top stock producers earn for a given agency. For example, say the top 100 contributors earned the agency 50% of their revenue. In that example, they could form a united coalition that could actually have a say on pricing and royalty percentages. The question is how many of the "top earners" would it take to combine and form the beginnings of a stock producer coalition who would be able to yield power over the agency?

There is this one.
I don't know how successful they have been ....

https://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/documents-filed-for-official-stock-coalition-organization/msg555660/#msg555660

[marthamarks]

I'm another SS refugee pitching my tent on the lawn and hoping I don't get detention or lines from now on.

Welcome, NuttyMoo!

You won't get detention here. You don't have to color inside the lines. As long as you have a relative tough hide, you'll get along just fine.

[marthamarks]

I've read so much about how contributors are being overlooked to make stakeholders happy. And how we can shout and scream and we're not being heard.
So here's my cunning plan:
Why don't we contributors ALL become stakeholders, massively buying SSTK stocks. And then dump 'em all at once. A classic pump 'n dump. They'll never know what hit 'em!

Or just become a stakeholder for profit and stop contributing. If you can't beat them, join them.

OM has it right above, methinks.

I'd already given some thought to your second strategy, above. That's entirely do-able.

Your first strategy would be a lot more fun, except it could hurt us too in the end. Of course, if each of us just buys 1 share of stock, the damage would be minimal.

[wds]

It would be interesting to know quantitatively how much the top stock producers earn for a given agency. For example, say the top 100 contributors earned the agency 50% of their revenue. In that example, they could form a united coalition that could actually have a say on pricing and royalty percentages. The question is how many of the "top earners" would it take to combine and form the beginnings of a stock producer coalition who would be able to yield power over the agency?

There is this one.
I don't know how successful they have been ....

https://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/documents-filed-for-official-stock-coalition-organization/msg555660/#msg555660

I guess my point or question was how many "top tier" contributors would it take to apply pressure to the agencies.

[cascoly]

...
I guess my point or question was how many "top tier" contributors would it take to apply pressure to the agencies.

more than would ever agree to participate

[marthamarks]

...
I guess my point or question was how many "top tier" contributors would it take to apply pressure to the agencies.

more than would ever agree to participate

Righto. The top-tier contributors have seldom (never?) been willing to sacrifice for the good of the entire collection of contributors. And really, who can blame them???

[Pacesetter]

...
I guess my point or question was how many "top tier" contributors would it take to apply pressure to the agencies.

more than would ever agree to participate

Righto. The top-tier contributors have seldom (never?) been willing to sacrifice for the good of the entire collection of contributors. And really, who can blame them???

They probably have independent agreements with the agency with more favorable terms for the top-tier contributor than the mainstream contributor.

[Zero Talent]

...
I guess my point or question was how many "top tier" contributors would it take to apply pressure to the agencies.

more than would ever agree to participate

Righto. The top-tier contributors have seldom (never?) been willing to sacrifice for the good of the entire collection of contributors. And really, who can blame them???

They probably have independent agreements with the agency with more favorable terms for the top-tier contributor than the mainstream contributor.

Not necessarily.
Top tier contributors might have naturally reached, many months ago, higher levels granting them higher percentages than what they had "before". So top tier contributors might make more money than "before" and they have no reasons ask for a change.

[marthamarks]

Methinks it's possible that both Zero Talent and Pacesetter are correct.

There may well be many more kinds of deals out there for the big image factories and super-shooters/videographers/illustrators than any of we ordinary mortals are aware of.

[changingsky]

Someday there will be company run by us (the artist) where the commission is 70%  plus for the us and our voices are heard and changes are made to benefit us. Someday...

This kind of projects are not a new invention, there were many. Some of them even started here, between this forum members. None of them gained a visible place on the market. Ideas were different: from an agency run by the artists to the network of standardized websites with a common search and interlinking. Lifecycle of these projects is usually very short and they fell because of limiting factors like investments, time, human psychology (and especially artists specific) etc etc.
And there will be people which will start again. Wishing them good luck, even with the references to the failed before projects. A neutral to artists agency was the mostly competitive type in microstock, but this neutrality also does not live long. How this model works and evolves everybody sees in the income digits, very different for an agency and an artist.