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Author Topic: Shutterstock just became iStock 2.0  (Read 122612 times)

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« Reply #550 on: June 01, 2020, 12:29 »
+7
Looks that way - they cant even get the robbing contributors bit correct.  Everything is appearing as an SOD.
Greed and incompetence. That's a potent mix. If you aim to drive a business into the ground that is.


« Reply #551 on: June 01, 2020, 12:38 »
+4
Looks that way - they cant even get the robbing contributors bit correct.  Everything is appearing as an SOD.
Greed and incompetence. That's a potent mix. If you aim to drive a business into the ground that is.


Thing is, THEY are laughing all the way to the bank. Its only being driven into the ground for contributors. The noobs who are ok with $.10 an image are all lined up, ready to go. Tens of thousands of them.

« Reply #552 on: June 01, 2020, 12:42 »
+2
So they've made some cleaning up on Facebook... i think it won't last for long

eyeidea

  • visualize your brainstorm
« Reply #553 on: June 01, 2020, 12:44 »
+56
Who I am:
I've been doing stock for 14 years.  At one time I was the #1 video contributor at iStock.  My videos have earned millions for the agencies I submit to.  I've been with ShutterStock for about 10 years.  Today I have thousands of top performing videos at several agencies.

Who I am not:
A desperate artist that will accept a pittance in royalties from any agency.


Today I opted out of image and video sales at ShutterStock.

« Reply #554 on: June 01, 2020, 13:11 »
+16
I've just disabled my 16000 elements portfolio after the first 0.10 cent sale.....

« Reply #555 on: June 01, 2020, 13:15 »
+2


Wonder why that is.....

« Reply #556 on: June 01, 2020, 13:25 »
+5

Thats interesting in a way.

We were told the SODs for sub value were things like FB adverts and so on NOT subscriptions.
So it seems we get 10 cents for those as well NOT just subscriptions.

The 0.10$ SODs might possibly be a mistake and supposed to be SUBs. At least I just had a customer download two images who frequently buys from me (always same city and same topic of images, so I know it's the same) and the images used to be SUBs previously and are now listed under SODs.

Tiny SODs and subs are the same except for internal accounting, in that subs are bought directly through the website and tiny SODs are subs sold via the Enterprise Team like the facebook deal.  The reason why the SODs are 10c is that the real price falls below 10c so the 10c floor kicks in.  They are selling your images for next to nothing.

10c is what you can expect when they start discounting subs, expect a lot in January.

« Reply #557 on: June 01, 2020, 13:38 »
+9
That is HUGE from eye idea!!  Thanks for that and bravo! They will miss those files trust me he has amazing talent

« Reply #558 on: June 01, 2020, 13:46 »
+3
Looks that way - they cant even get the robbing contributors bit correct.  Everything is appearing as an SOD.
Greed and incompetence. That's a potent mix. If you aim to drive a business into the ground that is.


Thing is, THEY are laughing all the way to the bank. Its only being driven into the ground for contributors. The noobs who are ok with $.10 an image are all lined up, ready to go. Tens of thousands of them.

Short term maybe. Long term they'll eventually share the fate of iStock. I don't know what kind of spin they put to this in their corporate meetings to convince themselves it is sustainable but there is no way they'll be able to keep old and attract new contributors producing relevant and quality content. After that it'll be a vicious circle ...down the drain. It's not the first nor the last time a leading company shoots itself in the foot

« Reply #559 on: June 01, 2020, 13:57 »
+5
I'm still unconvinced it's a healthy company at all.
The hordes of very unhappy customers, the fact anyone can steal their content for free and so on.
To be this looks like a cost cutting measure to help a company with some fairly serious issues.

Snow

« Reply #560 on: June 01, 2020, 14:18 »
+8
Respect to everyone out there willing to take a stand even if that means they will lose hundreds or even thousands of dollars!!!

You can bet there are some top contributors who's earnings will get halved but will still bend over and take the abuse. Good luck to them!
I was thinking about deleting every image that has been sold for cheap but that takes too much time and effort, something we don't have to spend on SS anymore.
I will only lose a few hundred compared to others since my earnings already took a huge nosedive a few years back and kept going down.

Let's keep it simple at first, moving to Adobe or P5. For those that do not want to delete or disable their portfolio just yet at least refrain from uploading new content to SS. Don't feed the greed!
Try a niche or some illustrative editorials which is something not easy to replicate. Up it a notch, less quantity more quality. Try to create work that is not already on Shutterstock. They are probably counting on some of their contributors to duplicate our work but they will always be one step behind or lack the time and talent.
If we notice Adobe doesn't care either then we can look into Symbiostock (images, vectors, videos) or even Pixels.com (images) and create our own platform.

https://www.symbiostock.org

https://licensing.pixels.com/aboutpixelslicensing.html

There are still too many contributors with amazing talent and portfolio's. Do not give in now and let that talent/portfolio go to waste!

Also don't give them a reason to deactivate your account without payment, be as smart and tactical as they are!

Where is everyone anyway. If we know about this forum then 90% of the contributors should know about this forum no? speak up people, join in, we know you're there!
« Last Edit: June 01, 2020, 14:21 by Snow »

« Reply #561 on: June 01, 2020, 14:22 »
+5
Eyeidea! Thank you! Always loved your work!

Looking over all the info between the total silence from management, the aggressive deleting of contributor accounts just for complaining in public,  the lousy ratings by customers on Trustpilots and even apps that analyse publicly traded company info that warn against SS...they seem to be in a world of problems.

They thought in the middle of a pandemic creatives are so desperate that they simply cannot afford to delete ports and that they MUST upload.


« Reply #562 on: June 01, 2020, 14:26 »
+10
Welcome to the club of "disabled portfolios". I hope more big names like you follow course once they realize what a bad deal is presented in front of them. If 50% of contributors would disable portfolios their value at the Nasdaq would crash in no time, and Mr Stan Pavlovsky would get a hefty boot where the back looses its name. Oringer might realize that his decision was the most ill one he has taken in his life.

Who I am:
I've been doing stock for 14 years.  At one time I was the #1 video contributor at iStock.  My videos have earned millions for the agencies I submit to.  I've been with ShutterStock for about 10 years.  Today I have thousands of top performing videos at several agencies.

Who I am not:
A desperate artist that will accept a pittance in royalties from any agency.


Today I opted out of image and video sales at ShutterStock.

marthamarks

« Reply #563 on: June 01, 2020, 14:50 »
+2

marthamarks

« Reply #564 on: June 01, 2020, 14:51 »
+2
Who I am:
I've been doing stock for 14 years.  At one time I was the #1 video contributor at iStock.  My videos have earned millions for the agencies I submit to.  I've been with ShutterStock for about 10 years.  Today I have thousands of top performing videos at several agencies.

Who I am not:
A desperate artist that will accept a pittance in royalties from any agency.


Today I opted out of image and video sales at ShutterStock.

Way to go!!!!!

marthamarks

« Reply #565 on: June 01, 2020, 14:54 »
+2
From now, on my social media channels, I will be referring to SS as the Pavlovsky agency aka Shutterstock I hope others will join me.

I suggest this brief edit, based on inspiration from our friend Trabuco:

 the Pavlovsky agency aka Shitterstock

« Reply #566 on: June 01, 2020, 14:54 »
+3
If they really wanted a nanostock collection, they could have been transparent, upfront, contacted people for that, added an for nanostock button on the upload page and they would have certainly received millions of files they could have used.

They could have also long ago adjusted their rate card to reflect real percentages of what customers paid. Maybe even with yearly levels, but without the stupid reset.

To do it all behind everyones back and hijack all content for nanostock, then abruptly with 6 days notice force everyone into it, at a time when day job earnings are gone....

This will end up as a textbook case how not to ruin a publicly traded company.


« Reply #567 on: June 01, 2020, 14:57 »
+14
Suicide of Shutterstock!

marthamarks

« Reply #568 on: June 01, 2020, 14:59 »
+6
I've just disabled my 16000 elements portfolio after the first 0.10 cent sale.....

Congratulations and thanks for taking a principled stand for yourself and for everybody else being hit right now.

Thank you!

« Reply #569 on: June 01, 2020, 15:07 »
+5


Who I am:
I've been doing stock for 14 years.  At one time I was the #1 video contributor at iStock.  My videos have earned millions for the agencies I submit to.  I've been with ShutterStock for about 10 years.  Today I have thousands of top performing videos at several agencies.

Who I am not:
A desperate artist that will accept a pittance in royalties from any agency.


Today I opted out of image and video sales at ShutterStock.

Great move, are you ready to spread it on twitter #BoycottShutterstock @Shutterstock ?

H2O

    This user is banned.
« Reply #570 on: June 01, 2020, 15:08 »
+4
Just sold my first 10 cent image. I will most likely delete my videos in a month. I will wait several months on images, but I suspect this will be my last year with SS. Not angry, don't expect them to change their business model. Now that it doesn't work for me, I will simply move on to something different and more lucrative. Not the first time I had to pivot because a company changed direction, wont be the last.

This is true, as Shutterstock are about to find out their revenue's will be going down over the next couple of years as the talent moves out.

I think the first to go down hill will be the video side of the site, this takes a lot of time, image editing and the right equipment to produce this content.


« Reply #571 on: June 01, 2020, 15:34 »
+8
Based on the first day sales under the new system, SS just improved their revenue by about 100%.

Tomorrow is going to be brutal since the system will be place for the full day. Even Level 6 contributors are seeing their revenue drop by at least 50% in some cases.

« Reply #572 on: June 01, 2020, 15:42 »
+2
From now, on my social media channels, I will be referring to SS as the Pavlovsky agency aka Shutterstock I hope others will join me.

I suggest this brief edit, based on inspiration from our friend Trabuco:

 the Pavlovsky agency aka Shitterstock

Shitterstock it is

« Reply #573 on: June 01, 2020, 15:49 »
+10
...For those that do not want to delete or disable their portfolio just yet at least refrain from uploading new content to SS. Don't feed the greed! . . .

I like Don't feed the greed! I liked enough to borrow it for a hashtag for tweets

https://twitter.com/joannsnover/status/1267548751175901184

Can't use the apostrophe in a hashtag, so the grammar police won't be happy, but I can live with that :)

I've disabled my portfolio, but for those who can't #BoycottShutterstock, we can advocate that they #DontFeedTheGreed

« Reply #574 on: June 01, 2020, 17:33 »
+8
Looks that way - they cant even get the robbing contributors bit correct.  Everything is appearing as an SOD.
Greed and incompetence. That's a potent mix. If you aim to drive a business into the ground that is.


Thing is, THEY are laughing all the way to the bank. Its only being driven into the ground for contributors. The noobs who are ok with $.10 an image are all lined up, ready to go. Tens of thousands of them.

Short term maybe. Long term they'll eventually share the fate of iStock. I don't know what kind of spin they put to this in their corporate meetings to convince themselves it is sustainable but there is no way they'll be able to keep old and attract new contributors producing relevant and quality content. After that it'll be a vicious circle ...down the drain. It's not the first nor the last time a leading company shoots itself in the foot

I don't think they ever thought it would be sustainable. They made a mint going public and the goal has always been, to fill their pockets, at our expense.

The business plan has been built around devaluing our assets to gain market share and that has not changed. The focus is on attracting more contributors, using key contributors to attract more contributors and offering the lowest pricing model to attract buyers.

They fully understand this is not sustainable, at which point they do just what they have done. When profits & market share drop, prop stock prices up by robbing the contributor piggy bank.

I don't care enough any more, to check what key players have been doing with their stock and stock options. I am out and have been out for a while. Will never be back. I don't do business with morally bankrupt crooks.


 

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