MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => Shutterstock.com => Topic started by: Uncle Pete on June 15, 2018, 09:35
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Instead of a number, I'm starting over with just the general subject.
Shutterstock Milestones:
September 21, 2006 - Shutterstock surpasses one million stock photos
February 20, 2009 -Shutterstock reaches 6 million photos, (5 million 2.5 years)
February 14, 2010 - Shutterstock reaches 10 million Photos (4 million 12 months)
June 19, 2012 - Shutterstock reaches 20 million stock Images (10 Million 28 months)
October 30, 2013 - Shutterstock reaches 30 million images (10 million 15 months)
August 4, 2014 - Shutterstock celebrates 40 million images in it's collection. (10 million 10 months)
December 31, 2014 - 46.8 million images in the collection. (1 million new files per month)
March 3, 2015 - 50 Million Image mark is reached (10 million in 7 months for those watching)
August 12, 2015 - 60 Million Images (10 million in 160 days. 62,500 new files a day)
December 15, 2015 - 70 Million Images (four months)
March 26, 2016 - 80 Million
June 16, 2016 - 90 Million (10 million under three months)
Sept 8, 2016 - 100 Million
February 2017 - 110 Million
October 28, 2017 – 160 Million
December 29, 2017 - 170 Million (10 million new two months)
April 16, 2018 - 190 Million (20 million new in 3.5 months)
June 10, 2018 - 200 Million (10 million new in 55 days)
No longer tracking the following.
SS Members by registration year rounded
2004 - 2000
2005 - 4300
2006 - 3900 = 9000
2007 - 3800 = 13,000
2008 - 5500 = 19,000
2009 - 7200 = 27,000
2010 - 6000 = 33,000
2011 - 6000 = 39,000
2012 - 10000 = 49,000
2013 - 11000 = 60,000
2014 - 14000 = 74,000
2015 - 26000 = 100,000
2016 - 64000 = 165,000
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Year Cont YR < 0 Img Cont % < 0 Cont T < 0 Cont % < 0
2004 1,950 1,030 52.82% 1,950 1,030 52.82%
2005 15,426 4,725 30.63% 17,376 5,755 33.12%
2006 26,349 3,676 13.95% 43,725 9,431 21.57%
2007 36,631 3,939 10.75% 80,356 13,370 16.64%
2008 48,267 5,767 11.95% 128,623 19,137 14.88%
2009 70,125 7,866 11.22% 198,748 27,003 13.59%
2010 58,454 6,324 10.82% 257,202 33,327 12.96%
2011 66,479 6,026 9.06% 323,681 39,353 12.16%
2012 154,082 9,661 6.27% 477,763 49,014 10.26%
2013 205,951 10,990 5.34% 683,714 60,004 8.78%
2014 228,906 14,050 6.14% 912,620 74,053 8.11%
2015 343,461 26,455 7.7% 1,256,081 100,508 8.00%
2016 422,950 64,440 15.24% 1,679,031 164,949 9.82%
I'm not sure the number of contributors makes a difference any longer. The number is so large, people come and go. I'll try to stick with images from now on.
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It took SS about six years to have the first ten million uploaded files. That was about 2006 to 2012, right about the same date that some people noticed sales and income dropping.
Now that same number of new images takes 55 days. Ten Million new competing images every two months. And some wonder why sales and earnings are down. ???
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What about the demand? "News" websites have gone up a lot in recent years and article lifetime has gone down a lot. For instance.
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Jeez!!! unbelievable and some people wonder why sales are down. No wonder! you can sit there and upload buckets and buckets of files without even an 0.38 sale!!..just one big slope to nothing.
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What about the demand? "News" websites have gone up a lot in recent years and article lifetime has gone down a lot. For instance.
Partly true but you only need to look at SS's published figures to see overall supply has increased vastly more than supply.
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What about the demand? "News" websites have gone up a lot in recent years and article lifetime has gone down a lot. For instance.
Partly true but you only need to look at SS's published figures to see overall supply has increased vastly more than supply.
Correct! supply way outstripping the demand! been like that for the last 4 years really! but you know pics are assets and assets means money! OUR assets!
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What about the demand? "News" websites have gone up a lot in recent years and article lifetime has gone down a lot. For instance.
Partly true but you only need to look at SS's published figures to see overall supply has increased vastly more than supply.
Correct! supply way outstripping the demand! been like that for the last 4 years really! but you know pics are assets and assets means money! OUR assets!
They are only assets if someone wants to buy them.....I wonder when stockholders are going to look under the hood and wonder about these 100s of million "quality" assets that SS have. I'm guessing that 80% minimum have never sold.
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What about the demand? "News" websites have gone up a lot in recent years and article lifetime has gone down a lot. For instance.
Partly true but you only need to look at SS's published figures to see overall supply has increased vastly more than supply.
True, saw the figures, but I kind of tend to ignore the spam and low quality (commercial value) supply when thinking about it. Those supply numbers might be a lot pumped with this kind of assets. For one thing, even when I look at my own portfolio I tend to ignore the images I know don't have high value, which I uploaded just because I had nothing else at hand at that moment and maybe at some point it will have some casual download numbers. I just exclude them from my calculations.
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What about the demand? "News" websites have gone up a lot in recent years and article lifetime has gone down a lot. For instance.
Partly true but you only need to look at SS's published figures to see overall supply has increased vastly more than supply.
True, saw the figures, but I kind of tend to ignore the spam and low quality (commercial value) supply when thinking about it. Those supply numbers might be a lot pumped with this kind of assets. For one thing, even when I look at my own portfolio I tend to ignore the images I know don't have high value, which I uploaded just because I had nothing else at hand at that moment and maybe at some point it will have some casual download numbers. I just exclude them from my calculations.
Thats a fair point from my own experience if the quality of recent submissions were as high as in the past I ought to be doing far worse than I am. I wonder sometimes if the lowering of acceptance standards actually works in our favour as some newbies think any old .... sells.
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What about the demand? "News" websites have gone up a lot in recent years and article lifetime has gone down a lot. For instance.
Partly true but you only need to look at SS's published figures to see overall supply has increased vastly more than supply.
True, saw the figures, but I kind of tend to ignore the spam and low quality (commercial value) supply when thinking about it. Those supply numbers might be a lot pumped with this kind of assets. For one thing, even when I look at my own portfolio I tend to ignore the images I know don't have high value, which I uploaded just because I had nothing else at hand at that moment and maybe at some point it will have some casual download numbers. I just exclude them from my calculations.
Thats a fair point from my own experience if the quality of recent submissions were as high as in the past I ought to be doing far worse than I am. I wonder sometimes if the lowering of acceptance standards actually works in our favour as some newbies think any old .... sells.
I think, in the end, it comes down to how good the search algorithm is, if the spam and low quality gets pushed deep down, it doesn't even matter if it's being uploaded or not. And it's probably good enough for now.
On the other hands, of course there are very good photographers with quality material that join up everyday, that's the real supply we should be afraid of.
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I think, in the end, it comes down to how good the search algorithm is, if the spam and low quality gets pushed deep down, it doesn't even matter if it's being uploaded or not. And it's probably good enough for now.
On the other hands, of course there are very good photographers with quality material that join up everyday, that's the real supply we should be afraid of.
It will take years for them to make a profit.
Even in countries there living is cheap.
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What about the demand? "News" websites have gone up a lot in recent years and article lifetime has gone down a lot. For instance.
Partly true but you only need to look at SS's published figures to see overall supply has increased vastly more than supply.
True, saw the figures, but I kind of tend to ignore the spam and low quality (commercial value) supply when thinking about it. Those supply numbers might be a lot pumped with this kind of assets. For one thing, even when I look at my own portfolio I tend to ignore the images I know don't have high value, which I uploaded just because I had nothing else at hand at that moment and maybe at some point it will have some casual download numbers. I just exclude them from my calculations.
Thats a fair point from my own experience if the quality of recent submissions were as high as in the past I ought to be doing far worse than I am. I wonder sometimes if the lowering of acceptance standards actually works in our favour as some newbies think any old .... sells.
I think, in the end, it comes down to how good the search algorithm is, if the spam and low quality gets pushed deep down, it doesn't even matter if it's being uploaded or not. And it's probably good enough for now.
On the other hands, of course there are very good photographers with quality material that join up everyday, that's the real supply we should be afraid of.
The other factor that seems to be overlooked is that someone still has to consider it good enough to buy it however high in the search it finishes!
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Long discussions, collected statistics - all this just shows that for old contributors exist only 2 options: 1. to support existing earnings level, knowing that any progress is not porssible. How many efforts and which kind of efforts - this is very individual. 2. search for other fields, with real profit
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Long discussions, collected statistics - all this just shows that for old contributors exist only 2 options: 1. to support existing earnings level, knowing that any progress is not porssible. How many efforts and which kind of efforts - this is very individual. 2. search for other fields, with real profit
Good one and agreeing 100%. For me since 1993 and back with Tony-stone, image-bank etc, etc, stock have always been a sidekick to commission based photography and I recon any "old-timer" should really start looking in that direction. Full-time pro photography involves running studios, equipment, this and that and its a monthly expenditures. Todays stock-photography can hardly match these outlays.
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after a very good first 10 days the last 8 days were appalling....sure now sales will resort suddenly to read the normal quota, but really there is any motivation to upload more files or work for ss. esp contrary show growth in sales every month, fotolia too.
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comparing this month to last year june...ay by day is practically the same...first 7 days good...from 7 to 18 crap...thn again very good...according to last year i should expect tomorrow a rise in sales. let'see.
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Personally, I think the poor quality of many of these new images is the biggest issue. They accept so much garbage these days that it is often hard to sort through to find the good stuff. Sometimes when I am searching I'll see 25 slightly different variations of the same crappy shot that no-one in their right mind would ever buy. I see vectors up there that look like they were drawn by two-year-olds. If you can't draw with a pencil and paper you have no business selling vector illustrations.
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Personally, I think the poor quality of many of these new images is the biggest issue. They accept so much garbage these days that it is often hard to sort through to find the good stuff. Sometimes when I am searching I'll see 25 slightly different variations of the same crappy shot that no-one in their right mind would ever buy. I see vectors up there that look like they were drawn by two-year-olds. If you can't draw with a pencil and paper you have no business selling vector illustrations.
i agree. and if you want to improve your level of sales you can only rely on new files.
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Long discussions, collected statistics - all this just shows that for old contributors exist only 2 options: 1. to support existing earnings level, knowing that any progress is not porssible. How many efforts and which kind of efforts - this is very individual. 2. search for other fields, with real profit
Yes I agree. Too many people look at this from a personal level, instead of business. I don't mean the photo business, I mean the stock company business. There are comments about quality and spam and content and rejections, which are fine, but irrelevant. If we are looking at earnings, our own, that's not the same as what the big picture is doing. They don't care about us... we do of course.
The answer is, this market is dying and searching for other ways to sell, which is not other fields, is the answer. The old agency, film photo system, died for the most part. Stock imaging sales for a living, has changed. Micro and web stock has changed. Find new outlets and recognize that Microstock has gone flat, the boom is over. Don't rely on what was, but look for new and what will be.
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Shutterstock Milestones:
September 21, 2006 - Shutterstock surpasses one million stock photos
February 20, 2009 -Shutterstock reaches 6 million photos, (5 million 2.5 years)
February 14, 2010 - Shutterstock reaches 10 million Photos (4 million 12 months)
June 19, 2012 - Shutterstock reaches 20 million stock Images (10 Million 28 months)
October 30, 2013 - Shutterstock reaches 30 million images (10 million 15 months)
August 4, 2014 - Shutterstock celebrates 40 million images in it's collection. (10 million 10 months)
December 31, 2014 - 46.8 million images in the collection. (1 million new files per month)
March 3, 2015 - 50 Million Image mark is reached (10 million in 7 months for those watching)
August 12, 2015 - 60 Million Images (10 million in 160 days. 62,500 new files a day)
December 15, 2015 - 70 Million Images (four months)
March 26, 2016 - 80 Million
June 16, 2016 - 90 Million (10 million under three months)
Sept 8, 2016 - 100 Million
February 2017 - 110 Million
October 28, 2017 – 160 Million
December 29, 2017 - 170 Million (10 million new two months)
April 16, 2018 - 190 Million (20 million new in 3.5 months)
June 10, 2018 - 200 Million (10 million new in 55 days)
August 1, 2018 - 210 Million (10 million new in 53 days)
Has the limit for intake of newly accepted files, finally been reached? September 23rd 220 Million? :-\
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Shutterstock Milestones:
September 21, 2006 - Shutterstock surpasses one million stock photos
February 20, 2009 -Shutterstock reaches 6 million photos, (5 million 2.5 years)
February 14, 2010 - Shutterstock reaches 10 million Photos (4 million 12 months)
June 19, 2012 - Shutterstock reaches 20 million stock Images (10 Million 28 months)
October 30, 2013 - Shutterstock reaches 30 million images (10 million 15 months)
August 4, 2014 - Shutterstock celebrates 40 million images in it's collection. (10 million 10 months)
December 31, 2014 - 46.8 million images in the collection. (1 million new files per month)
March 3, 2015 - 50 Million Image mark is reached (10 million in 7 months for those watching)
August 12, 2015 - 60 Million Images (10 million in 160 days. 62,500 new files a day)
December 15, 2015 - 70 Million Images (four months)
March 26, 2016 - 80 Million
June 16, 2016 - 90 Million (10 million under three months)
Sept 8, 2016 - 100 Million
February 2017 - 110 Million
October 28, 2017 – 160 Million
December 29, 2017 - 170 Million (10 million new two months)
April 16, 2018 - 190 Million (20 million new in 3.5 months)
June 10, 2018 - 200 Million (10 million new in 55 days)
August 1, 2018 - 210 Million (10 million new in 53 days)
Has the limit for intake of newly accepted files, finally been reached? September 23rd 220 Million? :-\
Lets hope so exponential increases can never last forever
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There's only one solution, everyone stop uploading! If QC eliminated NCV subject matter, similars and average content, the collection could be halved.
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There's only one solution, everyone stop uploading! If QC eliminated NCV subject matter, similars and average content, the collection could be halved.
Well everyone except me ;-). Halved? More than that I reckon 80% at least of new content never sells.
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There's only one solution, everyone stop uploading! If QC eliminated NCV subject matter, similars and average content, the collection could be halved.
Well everyone except me ;-). Halved? More than that I reckon 80% at least of new content never sells.
Well everyone, stop uploading anything that I shoot would be my plan? :)
As far as pk and half, I think if they limited ncv and dupes and similars the collection might be 25% or less of what it is now. Just start looking for ideas and areas where you can find something, no well covered or over covered, even if 90% are unmarketable crap. You should start to see how many images are nothing but numbers and have no hope of ever getting a download, if the buyer has minimal sense and any perception.
SS could stop accepting uploads and start culling out the junk, imagine that, just the good stuff. I know we'd disagree if ours were removed, but in the end, the entire collection might be a few million select images. Imagine that, buyers wouldn't have to wade through a cesspool to find what they want. 8)
Nope, not going to happen and 10 million new images every two months, looks like the level that can be input and processed. That could change. ANyone else wonder how many rejections go along with 10 million new images, or how bad they had to be to fail. LOL
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There's only one solution, everyone stop uploading! If QC eliminated NCV subject matter, similars and average content, the collection could be halved.
Well everyone except me ;-). Halved? More than that I reckon 80% at least of new content never sells.
Well everyone, stop uploading anything that I shoot would be my plan? :)
As far as pk and half, I think if they limited ncv and dupes and similars the collection might be 25% or less of what it is now. Just start looking for ideas and areas where you can find something, no well covered or over covered, even if 90% are unmarketable crap. You should start to see how many images are nothing but numbers and have no hope of ever getting a download, if the buyer has minimal sense and any perception.
SS could stop accepting uploads and start culling out the junk, imagine that, just the good stuff. I know we'd disagree if ours were removed, but in the end, the entire collection might be a few million select images. Imagine that, buyers wouldn't have to wade through a cesspool to find what they want. 8)
Nope, not going to happen and 10 million new images every two months, looks like the level that can be input and processed. That could change. ANyone else wonder how many rejections go along with 10 million new images, or how bad they had to be to fail. LOL
3.5 million give or take a few hundred thousand if historical (up to two years ago) figures are anything to go by and they don't have to be bad to be rejected. In fact it's highly likely that the rejected ones are better than most of the accepted ones.
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There's only one solution, everyone stop uploading! If QC eliminated NCV subject matter, similars and average content, the collection could be halved.
Well everyone except me ;-). Halved? More than that I reckon 80% at least of new content never sells.
Well everyone, stop uploading anything that I shoot would be my plan? :)
As far as pk and half, I think if they limited ncv and dupes and similars the collection might be 25% or less of what it is now. Just start looking for ideas and areas where you can find something, no well covered or over covered, even if 90% are unmarketable crap. You should start to see how many images are nothing but numbers and have no hope of ever getting a download, if the buyer has minimal sense and any perception.
SS could stop accepting uploads and start culling out the junk, imagine that, just the good stuff. I know we'd disagree if ours were removed, but in the end, the entire collection might be a few million select images. Imagine that, buyers wouldn't have to wade through a cesspool to find what they want. 8)
Nope, not going to happen and 10 million new images every two months, looks like the level that can be input and processed. That could change. ANyone else wonder how many rejections go along with 10 million new images, or how bad they had to be to fail. LOL
3.5 million give or take a few hundred thousand if historical (up to two years ago) figures are anything to go by and they don't have to be bad to be rejected. In fact it's highly likely that the rejected ones are better than most of the accepted ones.
A lot seem to be rejected for pedantic/nitpicking model release/editorial captioning reasons. The few rejections I get are for marginal images that seem to be seen by "old school" reviewers...ones I would never have considered for SS in the past.
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I've had a few released for missing colons in editorial captions and a few model release ones i used to use but rejected (and i cant tell why) lately.
What they dont seem to do now is check the technical aspect of images (ie look at the images).
Time and time again you see "why am i not selling" questions on the SS format and the portfolios show horrific exposure, noise and everything else wrong with them.
One guy even had a few images with his watermark in the corner accepted.
Things like the editorial captioning could easily have been outsourced to bots i guess.
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I've had a few released for missing colons in editorial captions and a few model release ones i used to use but rejected (and i cant tell why) lately.
What they dont seem to do now is check the technical aspect of images (ie look at the images).
Time and time again you see "why am i not selling" questions on the SS format and the portfolios show horrific exposure, noise and everything else wrong with them.
One guy even had a few images with his watermark in the corner accepted.
Things like the editorial captioning could easily have been outsourced to bots i guess.
Seems to me certain contributors are just "waved through" the system.
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I've had a few released for missing colons in editorial captions and a few model release ones i used to use but rejected (and i cant tell why) lately.
What they dont seem to do now is check the technical aspect of images (ie look at the images).
Time and time again you see "why am i not selling" questions on the SS format and the portfolios show horrific exposure, noise and everything else wrong with them.
One guy even had a few images with his watermark in the corner accepted.
Things like the editorial captioning could easily have been outsourced to bots i guess.
Seems to me certain contributors are just "waved through" the system.
I don't think it's contributors with a free pass (unless you are a top earner), but the file type that gets waved through. JPEG illustrations for one if you look at what gets accepted. Reviews are done by AI and humans, if AI is letting in hundreds of images of an object from every conceivable view or cannabis leaves in a myriad of colors, and there is a target for rejections, the humans will be throwing out a lot more than they would otherwise need to do.
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Seems to me certain contributors are just "waved through" the system.
As far as technical standards (exposure, noise,white balance, focus, sharpness etc etc) EVERYONE gets waved through. Again, a quick glance at their own forum shows newcomers asking why no sales and you look at the portfolio and not a single one of their images would have been accepted by the previous policy. There are a few examples on there on the moment (bad form to directly link to them though).
SS QC now basically seems to be check for releases, check for editorial captions then click accept. No actual technical evaluation, im not convinced anyone even looks at the images now.
Maybe they're unofficially doing an Alamy now and only QCing a few images per batch.
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Seems to me certain contributors are just "waved through" the system.
As far as technical standards (exposure, noise,white balance, focus, sharpness etc etc) EVERYONE gets waved through. Again, a quick glance at their own forum shows newcomers asking why no sales and you look at the portfolio and not a single one of their images would have been accepted by the previous policy. There are a few examples on there on the moment (bad form to directly link to them though).
SS QC now basically seems to be check for releases, check for editorial captions then click accept. No actual technical evaluation, im not convinced anyone even looks at the images now.
Maybe they're unofficially doing an Alamy now and only QCing a few images per batch.
When you look at the numbers submitted the time allowed per image must be tiny. So that wouldn't surprise me. Ironically I think its probably those new to Mstock who suffer the most...when I started a had to learn a lot very quickly to get my pictures up to a decent technical standard even though my friends etc thought I was a "good" photographer. Now people are happily uploading stuff that has close to zero chance of selling as its technically deficient.
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Seems to me certain contributors are just "waved through" the system.
As far as technical standards (exposure, noise,white balance, focus, sharpness etc etc) EVERYONE gets waved through. Again, a quick glance at their own forum shows newcomers asking why no sales and you look at the portfolio and not a single one of their images would have been accepted by the previous policy. There are a few examples on there on the moment (bad form to directly link to them though).
SS QC now basically seems to be check for releases, check for editorial captions then click accept. No actual technical evaluation, im not convinced anyone even looks at the images now.
Maybe they're unofficially doing an Alamy now and only QCing a few images per batch.
Yes, I don't see why some people can't understand the difference, we'll all get rejections for nit picking legal reasons, and some of the worst crap in snapshots will get passed. No one gets a free pass and there aren't bots reviewing captions.
There's a computer pre-check for requirements, then it goes to humans. That simple. They have special propitiatory software for reviews that shows all kinds of information about the image, plus the caption and keywords, license, also photo measures. I still say it's easy for them to look, say "I don't know" and hit reject and get paid. So the people fighting the system who don't understand, add information to the caption like "shot from public property" or "public location POV" are just making their own life more difficult. The reviewers may be stupid and the legal dept may be overboard, but that's their choice. I can play with their rules or keep banging my head against the wall, because I'm getting stupid legal rejections.
Play the game by their rules, it's their agency.
Nearly nothing is rejected for quality anymore. It would have to be horrid. OK beyond horrid, I've seen some of the files that pass. Does anyone get a LCV rejection anymore? Remember when some were advocates of the Alamy system? If it's good enough quality, the content doesn't matter. Now some want to flip on that and complain about junk photos. Which is it? I hate the photo spam, but we can't have it both ways? At least Alamy used to restrict too many similar images.
When you look at the numbers submitted the time allowed per image must be tiny. So that wouldn't surprise me. Ironically I think its probably those new to Mstock who suffer the most...when I started a had to learn a lot very quickly to get my pictures up to a decent technical standard even though my friends etc thought I was a "good" photographer. Now people are happily uploading stuff that has close to zero chance of selling as its technically deficient.
Sounds right also. Getting accepted is only the first step. ;D There's no use in my mind, to waste time uploading images that have no chance of selling, much less, hundreds of the same subject. Personal choice, but I still make the best set and move on. Many are one, some are three shots. I have done bigger groups, but not often. Portfolio size doesn't matter if it's mostly Crapstock!
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They have special propitiatory software for reviews
I know it's probably just your spell checker, but you risk fuelling some conspiracy theory among people here that believe in magical thinking.
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They have special propitiatory software for reviews
I know it's probably just your spell checker, but you risk fuelling some conspiracy theory among people here that believe in magical thinking.
;D Took me awhile to figure that out. Yeah, not the spell checker I'm the guilty one all the way. Thanks for the correction...
Proprietary software, it has been mentioned in the stock reports and prospectus. SS isn't the only place with agency specific review software. Alamy for sure, on site. Can show embedded data, levels, camera, histogram.
But the problem is still reviewers are human. They are subjective as well as getting tired or lazy. If they are paid by the review, a quick batch of rejections, with assorted vague or wrong reasons, they get paid we get stuck working double for minimal payments.
How else can these places review over 1 million images a week, plus video, plus I'm pretty sure Editorial or illustrations go on a different review track. Reviewers come and leave. I'd think it's very difficult to obtain or hold a good, qualified, review staff? Probably paid just as poorly as us, so many are off site, English is a second language at best.
I'm not going to defend poor and crappy reviews, just pointing out the situation. Reviews are an expense for the agency, making that as cheap as possible and throwing the obligation to re-submit to us, saves the agency money. Situation Normal
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They have special propitiatory software for reviews
I know it's probably just your spell checker, but you risk fuelling some conspiracy theory among people here that believe in magical thinking.
;D Took me awhile to figure that out. Yeah, not the spell checker I'm the guilty one all the way. Thanks for the correction...
Proprietary software, it has been mentioned in the stock reports and prospectus. SS isn't the only place with agency specific review software. Alamy for sure, on site. Can show embedded data, levels, camera, histogram.
But the problem is still reviewers are human. They are subjective as well as getting tired or lazy. If they are paid by the review, a quick batch of rejections, with assorted vague or wrong reasons, they get paid we get stuck working double for minimal payments.
How else can these places review over 1 million images a week, plus video, plus I'm pretty sure Editorial or illustrations go on a different review track. Reviewers come and leave. I'd think it's very difficult to obtain or hold a good, qualified, review staff? Probably paid just as poorly as us, so many are off site, English is a second language at best.
I'm not going to defend poor and crappy reviews, just pointing out the situation. Reviews are an expense for the agency, making that as cheap as possible and throwing the obligation to re-submit to us, saves the agency money. Situation Normal
In your own post earlier you stated the SS collection has increased by 10 million images in 53 days. You also say they still reject images, in batches even, so what is the ratio? 1 to 1? For every image accepted there's one rejected? That would mean they receive around 20 million images in 53 days. That works out to a review pace of 15723 images per hour, 24 hours per day non stop. That would be 262 images per minute. If they had a review staff of 300 working in 8 hour shifts they would need to review about 27 images per minute each. About 1 image every 2 seconds. There's not much point even looking if you have to review an image in 2 seconds.
That pace will only increase and doesn't include video as you stated. I doubt most images are even seen by human eyes anymore.
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They have special propitiatory software for reviews
I know it's probably just your spell checker, but you risk fuelling some conspiracy theory among people here that believe in magical thinking.
;D Took me awhile to figure that out. Yeah, not the spell checker I'm the guilty one all the way. Thanks for the correction...
Proprietary software, it has been mentioned in the stock reports and prospectus. SS isn't the only place with agency specific review software. Alamy for sure, on site. Can show embedded data, levels, camera, histogram.
But the problem is still reviewers are human. They are subjective as well as getting tired or lazy. If they are paid by the review, a quick batch of rejections, with assorted vague or wrong reasons, they get paid we get stuck working double for minimal payments.
How else can these places review over 1 million images a week, plus video, plus I'm pretty sure Editorial or illustrations go on a different review track. Reviewers come and leave. I'd think it's very difficult to obtain or hold a good, qualified, review staff? Probably paid just as poorly as us, so many are off site, English is a second language at best.
I'm not going to defend poor and crappy reviews, just pointing out the situation. Reviews are an expense for the agency, making that as cheap as possible and throwing the obligation to re-submit to us, saves the agency money. Situation Normal
In your own post earlier you stated the SS collection has increased by 10 million images in 53 days. You also say they still reject images, in batches even, so what is the ratio? 1 to 1? For every image accepted there's one rejected? That would mean they receive around 20 million images in 53 days. That works out to a review pace of 15723 images per hour, 24 hours per day non stop. That would be 262 images per minute. If they had a review staff of 300 working in 8 hour shifts they would need to review about 27 images per minute each. About 1 image every 2 seconds. There's not much point even looking if you have to review an image in 2 seconds.
That pace will only increase and doesn't include video as you stated. I doubt most images are even seen by human eyes anymore.
I wish I knew the numbers, but I can see from complaints from people who are honest and that I trust, that the nit picking Editorial rejections are real. Rejections for other reasons are also wrong sometimes.
Hypothetical math logic doesn't prove the reviews are done by bots, but nice try. :)
Images are checked by the system for size and color space, missing parts, corrupted files. (and maybe other physical attributes) How would a bot know if an image needs a release or not, or if the release was correct? How would a bot know a case number? How does a bot see a license number, house number, and reject or any other minor SS rules, a violation, like location or protected buildings or sites.
Yes, software could read for keywords and flag the image, so a reviewer (human) can reject. I think we need to be careful about keywords or risk rejections. How does a bot see a foreign word, when there are none? Hmm, must be a stupid human.
Bots would be consistent, right or wrong, but not upload one day, rejected, upload three days later = identical, and they are accepted. Humans are subjective, bots aren't. Rejection reasons change for the same image, how's that? A batch of images, taken on the same day, same site, get clusters of varied rejections, three for focus, next three for shadows, next three for who knows what. I think some reviewer is just making assorted rejections, so it doesn't look like they are just making quick money.
Good questions, how does SS or any other place, review 1 million images in a week? How many are actually rejected to get to that one million? And if I just accept your numbers, at 2 seconds an image, yes that's why we have such inconsistent reviews. Also right, video someone has to watch the whole thing, or maybe not. All a bot could do was see if it was whole or continuous, a human can see if someone slipped in a nude, suddenly out of context material, or a protected site?
Essentially there are many, many, reviewers, and many are probably barely trained while some are going to be incompetent. Lets assume the cheats or incompetent get replaced, that means more, new, inexperienced reviewers, who don't understand all the possibilities and err on the side of caution. We get rejected, they take their money, the system gets over burdened with second and third uploads of the same. And we as contributors are waiting our time re-submitting something that should have passed the first time! >:( There are possibly also good, experienced, smart reviewers who zip through images at a fast pace, making good smart decisions.
Nope I'm still not buying into bots do the reviews just because there are so many files reviewed.
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Certainly possible for bots to review editorial captions, check model releases have all the correct bits actually filled in and so on.
You CAN use AI fairly well to detect image noise, burnt out highlights and out of focus these days. Whether they do or not i don't know. Adobe does - it gives you a warning of a possibly suspect image in your queue before submission.
I just don't see any actual person-looking-at-an-image going on in RF at all now. Everything is accepted. I can quite happily accept its less than 5 seconds for someone to "check" my image.
Also if they're using machine learning/AI it wont always necessarily be consistent between days or images.
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Milestones for SS:
1. Pay us less
2. Pay us even less than less
3. Pay us nothing (100% pure profit for SS and its shareholders)
:(
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many Im sure Know that I reviewed for 3 years 2004/2007 I did it because I was curious and because I wanted get a feel for what It was Like because originally it was research For our First book... . When I Started reviewing SS had About 350,000 Images. I reviewed for a competitor and I did on average 1000 Images a day which took about 6 Hours and In those days ...sometimes we ran Out of Images with 12 reviewers working. And Had to wait... To be Honest it was quite a Interesting thing to do.It became extremely easy after a short time and you could see Issues in seconds and back then we could and did write Notes to submitters trying to help them which is probably where I got into the habit Of helping others. And you better believe Back then I saw things that would curl your Hair and other things that gave you Nightmares. Honestly.
Things that I could never/Ever discuss even today 10/11 years later.
My goal was about 10,000 Images a week and I was the top guy all the time. It took No Longer than 3/5 seconds to approve or reject.We were Paid quite well then considering. But More than anything Back in the day I got to learn A LOT!!!! Im shooting 60 Years But it taught me what to look for and i was grateful for that education and many things I knew But forgot.
Wanna know something Interesting??. Im seeing the exact same Images and subjects today. LOL
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Thanks SS, you succeeded in putting my earnings back to 2010 in 2 easy months. Corporate clowns. >:( >:( >:( >:( >:( >:( >:(
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What about the demand? "News" websites have gone up a lot in recent years and article lifetime has gone down a lot. For instance.
Partly true but you only need to look at SS's published figures to see overall supply has increased vastly more than supply.
Correct! supply way outstripping the demand! been like that for the last 4 years really! but you know pics are assets and assets means money! OUR assets!
They are only assets if someone wants to buy them.....I wonder when stockholders are going to look under the hood and wonder about these 100s of million "quality" assets that SS have. I'm guessing that 80% minimum have never sold.
It dont seem to work that way because when they went public they proclaimed they had so and so many milion assets and at that time it was the total amount of files at SS!!....majority of large buyers investors are not stock-photography orientated they simply invest and to these people the fact that its the photographers assets dont even come to mind! they just see a number thats all!
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What about the demand? "News" websites have gone up a lot in recent years and article lifetime has gone down a lot. For instance.
Partly true but you only need to look at SS's published figures to see overall supply has increased vastly more than supply.
Correct! supply way outstripping the demand! been like that for the last 4 years really! but you know pics are assets and assets means money! OUR assets!
They are only assets if someone wants to buy them.....I wonder when stockholders are going to look under the hood and wonder about these 100s of million "quality" assets that SS have. I'm guessing that 80% minimum have never sold.
It dont seem to work that way because when they went public they proclaimed they had so and so many milion assets and at that time it was the total amount of files at SS!!....majority of large buyers investors are not stock-photography orientated they simply invest and to these people the fact that its the photographers assets dont even come to mind! they just see a number thats all!
It will only be when/if the investors spot that profits are declining and wonder why they will start looking more closely or they might just walk. As you say SS or any other stock company don't really have any saleable assets of their own...
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Milestones for SS:
1. Pay us less
2. Pay us even less than less
3. Pay us nothing (100% pure profit for SS and its shareholders)
:(
4. Charge contributors a nominal account maintenance fee for the privilege of accessing their marketplace.
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Not going to make any big observations, just a note: 220,000,000 or 220 Million images now on SS. September 26th 2018
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Not going to make any big observations, just a note: 220,000,000 or 220 Million images now on SS. September 26th 2018
It looks like growth is turning linear though 1-1.2m per week ;-).
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Not going to make any big observations, just a note: 220,000,000 or 220 Million images now on SS. September 26th 2018
It looks like growth is turning linear though 1-1.2m per week ;-).
Might be doing that, I've said before, there should be a point where negative growth of upload numbers occurs. New uploads are a runaway train, we can only watch, nothing can stop the inevitable crash. Too many files!
September 21, 2006 - Shutterstock surpasses one million stock photos (now that many new a week!)
February 14, 2010 - Shutterstock reaches 10 million Photos (now that many new every eight months)
Lets me see, why would sales be lower now than 2010? Hmm, can anyone see something that might have caused that? ::)
(https://i.postimg.cc/13g3jb9y/train_wreck_microstock.jpg)
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Not going to make any big observations, just a note: 220,000,000 or 220 Million images now on SS. September 26th 2018
It looks like growth is turning linear though 1-1.2m per week ;-).
Might be doing that, I've said before, there should be a point where negative growth of upload numbers occurs. New uploads are a runaway train, we can only watch, nothing can stop the inevitable crash. Too many files!
September 21, 2006 - Shutterstock surpasses one million stock photos (now that many new a week!)
February 14, 2010 - Shutterstock reaches 10 million Photos (now that many new every eight months)
Lets me see, why would sales be lower now than 2010? Hmm, can anyone see something that might have caused that? ::)
(https://i.postimg.cc/13g3jb9y/train_wreck_microstock.jpg)
Ah so thats how trains make little trains :D
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Not going to make any big observations, just a note: 220,000,000 or 220 Million images now on SS. September 26th 2018
It looks like growth is turning linear though 1-1.2m per week ;-).
Might be doing that, I've said before, there should be a point where negative growth of upload numbers occurs. New uploads are a runaway train, we can only watch, nothing can stop the inevitable crash. Too many files!
September 21, 2006 - Shutterstock surpasses one million stock photos (now that many new a week!)
February 14, 2010 - Shutterstock reaches 10 million Photos (now that many new every eight months)
Lets me see, why would sales be lower now than 2010? Hmm, can anyone see something that might have caused that? ::)
(https://i.postimg.cc/13g3jb9y/train_wreck_microstock.jpg)
Ah so thats how trains make little trains :D
Very good, I always wondered where they came from. ;D
(https://i.postimg.cc/FssTbQrw/train-wreck-how-were-sales.jpg)
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For those interested in video content growth on Shutterstock, these are the (advertised) total video files, in October, from the last five years:
10/2014 - 2,081,208
10/2015 - 3,326,309 (63% increase)
10/2016 - 5,416,462 (61% increase)
10/2017 - 8,306,500 (65% increase)
10/2018 - "over 12,000,000" (>69% increase)
(using "https://www.shutterstock.com/video" via https://web.archive.org (https://web.archive.org))
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Hey, tried to sneak one past me, didn't they?
Nov. 12th 2018 231 Million images on Shutterstock.
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Hey, tried to sneak one past me, didn't they?
Nov. 12th 2018 231 Million images on Shutterstock.
They could at least be honest
1 million really good images
2 million not so bad images
100 million really krap images that would make your eyes bleed
and 128 million similars and stolen images
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Hey, tried to sneak one past me, didn't they?
Nov. 12th 2018 231 Million images on Shutterstock.
They could at least be honest
1 million really good images
2 million not so bad images
100 million really krap images that would make your eyes bleed
and 128 million similars and stolen images
100% agreement. The numbers are for impressing investors, not for us or license buyers.
Edit: Adobe has 125 million images, but that includes Editorial and everything else. Just "images" is 116 million, which I think means Illustrations, Photos and Vectors, Etc. not video, 3D, premium, Editorial.
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2018 Update
Shutterstock Milestones:
September 21, 2006 - Shutterstock surpasses one million stock photos
February 20, 2009 -Shutterstock reaches 6 million photos, (5 million 2.5 years)
February 14, 2010 - Shutterstock reaches 10 million Photos (4 million 12 months)
June 19, 2012 - Shutterstock reaches 20 million stock Images (10 Million 28 months)
October 30, 2013 - Shutterstock reaches 30 million images (10 million 15 months)
August 4, 2014 - Shutterstock celebrates 40 million images in it's collection. (10 million 10 months)
December 31, 2014 - 46.8 million images in the collection. (1 million new files per month)
March 3, 2015 - 50 Million Image mark is reached (10 million in 7 months for those watching)
August 12, 2015 - 60 Million Images (10 million in 160 days. 62,500 new files a day)
December 15, 2015 - 70 Million Images (four months)
March 26, 2016 - 80 Million
June 16, 2016 - 90 Million (10 million under three months)
Sept 8, 2016 - 100 Million
February 2017 - 110 Million
October 28, 2017 – 160 Million
December 29, 2017 - 170 Million (10 million new two months)
February 24, 2018 - 180 Million
April 16, 2018 - 190 Million (20 million new in 3.5 months)
June 10, 2018 - 200 Million (10 million new in 55 days)
August 1, 2018 - 210 Million (10 million new in 53 days)
Sept. 26th 2018 - 220 Million images now on Shutterstock
Nov. 12th 2018 - 231 Million images on Shutterstock.
Dec. 26th, 2018 - 240 Million royalty-free stock images Shutterstock (10 million new in 44 days)
70 million new images added in 2018 vs 10 years to add that same amount 2005-2015
End of Dec. 2018
17877 contributors with over 1000 images
7616 Authors with over 1000 video clips
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It would be interesting to know of those 200 million plus images, the percentage that have sold at least once.
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It would be interesting to know of those 200 million plus images, the percentage that have sold at least once.
And note that the 17,877 artists is our competition, some of those are the spam portfolios that probably have 10 images out of 1,000 sold at all and 99% never get one sale. There are a good number of people with 2,000 walkabout images that will have terrible sales, they don't make anything that displays a concept or has any use for illustrating and idea or telling a story.
People who care, like most forum members, will have much better results. Personally I'm at 27% but there's a bunch of old stale tabletop and nasty bad illustrations, plus some things I found around the house or office and did tabletop. Since I do some specialty areas, many times I make one of a kind or three of a subject, even with that, all of the three, for example, don't get downloads, but one will get better attention.
Years ago, and I realize much has changed in both, the average income of forum members here, was in the top 5% of all iStock contributors. There are many ways to view that, like serious people made better income and others came and went without having their boat leave the dock. ;D That's one reason why I thought the SS stats are interesting, at least these people have 1,000 images which shows they did more than sign up.
When we had referrals, and I didn't try hard but I did have some, two people out of 20. that I got from a Photo Forum, actually passed the test, only one ever had a sale. Somehow last year, out of the blue I had another join and make a single sale. Whoo Hoo! Big celebration? ::) But what I'm getting at is nearly 18,000 people who have invested sometime and effort, to produce and upload images.
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It would be interesting to know of those 200 million plus images, the percentage that have sold at least once.
One of the forums I frequent is run by a guy that has frequent interactions with the heads of Shutterstock, Adobe stock, etc. After a meeting with at a big electronics show earlier this year in New York, he reported some key info.
The SS rep stated that 90% of their photos never have a single sale. The other agencies agreed that was about the right ratio.
They then went to say that the trick is to figure out WHICH 10% will sell. They are each trying different approaches to try to raise that percentage, but none have come up with a workable mechanism yet.
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2018 Update
Shutterstock Milestones:
September 21, 2006 - Shutterstock surpasses one million stock photos
February 20, 2009 -Shutterstock reaches 6 million photos, (5 million 2.5 years)
February 14, 2010 - Shutterstock reaches 10 million Photos (4 million 12 months)
June 19, 2012 - Shutterstock reaches 20 million stock Images (10 Million 28 months)
October 30, 2013 - Shutterstock reaches 30 million images (10 million 15 months)
August 4, 2014 - Shutterstock celebrates 40 million images in it's collection. (10 million 10 months)
December 31, 2014 - 46.8 million images in the collection. (1 million new files per month)
March 3, 2015 - 50 Million Image mark is reached (10 million in 7 months for those watching)
August 12, 2015 - 60 Million Images (10 million in 160 days. 62,500 new files a day)
December 15, 2015 - 70 Million Images (four months)
March 26, 2016 - 80 Million
June 16, 2016 - 90 Million (10 million under three months)
Sept 8, 2016 - 100 Million
February 2017 - 110 Million
October 28, 2017 – 160 Million
December 29, 2017 - 170 Million (10 million new two months)
February 24, 2018 - 180 Million
April 16, 2018 - 190 Million (20 million new in 3.5 months)
June 10, 2018 - 200 Million (10 million new in 55 days)
August 1, 2018 - 210 Million (10 million new in 53 days)
Sept. 26th 2018 - 220 Million images now on Shutterstock
Nov. 12th 2018 - 231 Million images on Shutterstock.
Dec. 26th, 2018 - 240 Million royalty-free stock images Shutterstock (10 million new in 44 days)
70 million new images added in 2018 vs 10 years to add that same amount 2005-2015
End of Dec. 2018
17877 contributors with over 1000 images
7616 Authors with over 1000 video clips
and we complain about sales...i'm still amazed i can reach some sales every month.
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It would be interesting to know of those 200 million plus images, the percentage that have sold at least once.
One of the forums I frequent is run by a guy that has frequent interactions with the heads of Shutterstock, Adobe stock, etc. After a meeting with at a big electronics show earlier this year in New York, he reported some key info.
The SS rep stated that 90% of their photos never have a single sale. The other agencies agreed that was about the right ratio.
They then went to say that the trick is to figure out WHICH 10% will sell. They are each trying different approaches to try to raise that percentage, but none have come up with a workable mechanism yet.
Sounds reasonable considering some of the files that have been accepted on SS lately. For AS I'm surprised because I know they try harder to keep the quality up. But all very believable.
And repeating, the people here do better than average so if we are at 72% never one sale that's fair as well.
I will say, that the same files pretty much sell everywhere and the same duds, don't sell anywhere. :)
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It would be interesting to know of those 200 million plus images, the percentage that have sold at least once.
One of the forums I frequent is run by a guy that has frequent interactions with the heads of Shutterstock, Adobe stock, etc. After a meeting with at a big electronics show earlier this year in New York, he reported some key info.
The SS rep stated that 90% of their photos never have a single sale. The other agencies agreed that was about the right ratio.
They then went to say that the trick is to figure out WHICH 10% will sell. They are each trying different approaches to try to raise that percentage, but none have come up with a workable mechanism yet.
I don't believe they really are though. It would be easy to raise that percentage by having tighter quality control. However that would reduce the overall total sales as those images that we might all consider rubbish but still for some bizarre reason someone buys wouldn't be available . As the cost of maintaining pictures on the web gets closer and closer to zero I don't think agencies care much about what proportion sells hence the trend toward "loose" inspection.
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Hi,
In the past year or so, someone posted a deep contributor statistic file here, something with data about how many contributors are from each country, and other statistics.
Any chance for a link? Couldn’t find it.
Any chance for the recent file as well?
Thanks.
ShutterStock fan.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Hi,
In the past year or so, someone posted a deep contributor statistic file here, something with data about how many contributors are from each country, and other statistics.
Any chance for a link? Couldn’t find it.
Any chance for the recent file as well?
Thanks.
ShutterStock fan.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Probably this, in Off Topic, but you are right, better here.
http://www.microstockgroup.com/off-topic/what-to-do-with-site-www-microstock-top/ (http://www.microstockgroup.com/off-topic/what-to-do-with-site-www-microstock-top/)
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Hi,
In the past year or so, someone posted a deep contributor statistic file here, something with data about how many contributors are from each country, and other statistics.
Any chance for a link? Couldn’t find it.
Any chance for the recent file as well?
Thanks.
ShutterStock fan.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Probably this, in Off Topic, but you are right, better here.
[url]http://www.microstockgroup.com/off-topic/what-to-do-with-site-www-microstock-top/[/url] ([url]http://www.microstockgroup.com/off-topic/what-to-do-with-site-www-microstock-top/[/url])
Fantastic, Thank you.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Earlier today SS was at 244,523,790 images online. I looked at that because I was taken aback at the image number of an approval this week - it was 1.28 billion
Assuming that they are actually assigning numbers to uploads sequentially, which I think they are, that's a staggering number.
Given the number of images online, the ratio is 5.256 - meaning for every image accepted, 5.256 are submitted. That's over the life of the agency. I wondered if that ratio had varied from year to year.
When the collection started to balloon in 2013-14, and when they did away with the 7/10 acceptance to become a contributor in 2015, I assumed, as I think many did, that they just accepted more of the work submitted - and that the junk came from the dropping of any useful standards.
I did a little sleuthing with numbers today and it told me that the issue was not accepting a higher portion of what they received, but increasing the number submitted by a vast amount.
As a contributor, I have image numbers with an approval date that will tell me the total images submitted by that date. With the Wayback Machine, I can look at the total number of images online on the site on that date (after December 2004 when there were "more than 53,000 images" online; before that they didn't show collection size.
My earliest image was from October 28 2004, number 18,634; I found image submittals at roughly yearly intervals (sometimes the dates didn't line up exactly) except for my hiatus while exclusive at iStock.
Not surprisingly, in 2004 and 2005 the ratio of images submitted : accepted was very low - 1.779 and 1.875. They were accepting more than half of what they received. That climbed to 3.035 by October 2007.
Picking back up in October 2011 through August 2016, the number floated around the 5 mark - 4.345 was the lowest between 2015 and 2016. They were then receiving 464K images a day and approving 106K per day
Between Aug 2016 and Feb 2017 the ratio soared to 7.618 - they were receiving 610K images a day and only putting 80K online
From Feb to Nov 2017 things settled back down and the ratio was 3.529, but then between Nov 2017 and Sep 2018, the images per day exploded to 1.38 million, with only 182K going online - ratio back up to 7.566
It's possible there was some chunk of image numbers skipped or reserved during that time - my only data is the image numbers of my submissions.
From Sep 2018 to Jan 15 2019, the acceptance ratio is now 4.006 and submissions are a less crazy (but still very high) 861K per day
You certainly have to wonder at the insane numbers of submissions after 2013 - 2014 or so. I still believe they aren't doing themselves - or contributors - any favors by encouraging this sort of bloatware.
I would also love to see what they're rejecting (given some of the horrendously bad images we've seen them flood the collection with).
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Another factor here is their policy on resubmitting rejected images. In the past you needed to be careful not to do this too often or you could be in trouble. Now it seems they actively encourage it.
I believe their theory is that "intelligent" search technology means the dross is not presented to buyers too much. Probably an unproven theory at best.
The problem they have created for themselves is that the sheer volume of submissions must make Inspection almost unmanageable with vast numbers of images inspected that are not approved or even if they are very unlikely to sell. I suspect many images are "waved through". Along with this they have a vast number of naive contributors requiring lots of support for even the most basic questions....hence the need to outsource customer service.
I also think its a pretty cynical ploy to give to people in poorer countries the impression that by uploading a couple of dozen phone pics they are going to make serious money.
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Interesting Jo Ann, I didn't quote the whole thing, but how are you determining the accepted and rejection ratios? For some reason every upload is +3 from the last used number. if an image is #10,000 the next is 10,003 I don't know if that makes any difference to how you figured rejections?
And yes, That's why I started tracking the total images growth as it was exploding. Now I'm just trying to note every 10 Million new images. Seems kind of strange as that's around every two months now and it took about 5 years to reach the first 10 Million, 2 1/2 years for the next 10 million. And we wonder why sales started dropping in 2012?
February 14, 2010 - Shutterstock reaches 10 million Photos (4 million 12 months)
June 19, 2012 - Shutterstock reaches 20 million stock Images (10 Million 28 months)
Last 10 Million new images accepted was 44 days.
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Well that makes things more complicated :)
I looked at some images, recent and older, and the every-third-image numbering scheme wasn't always the way things were. So images from the early days - I checked some from 2006 - are sequential. By 2011 (when I came back from exclusivity and started uploading again, the numbers are every third.
I did check some searches by number just to see if other people got assigned numbers in between my image numbers from a batch uploaded sequentially, and I can't find anything when searching for those "in between" numbers, so I assume they're skipping them completely.
That does affect the ratio, but it doesn't affect the overall patterns and how they change over time. There was higher rate of rejections from late 2016 and they accepted almost everything in the summer of 2017, for example.
This morning I dug around to see when the image assigned numbers really jumped up, and was able to narrow it down to something happening on Jan 20, 2018 where image numbers in the high 797 millions were followed - on the same day - by numbers in the low 1 billion range. I can't find any online content (with some quick spot checks; I'm too lazy to do more) with image numbers in the 800 million or 900 million range, so I think they skipped some numbers.
I think I'm just going to let this investigation go as there's too little solid data.
By the way, if you want to find the upload date for an image - they don't display it on the page - use the browser's View Source option and search for "datePublished".
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By the way, if you want to find the upload date for an image - they don't display it on the page - use the browser's View Source option and search for "datePublished".
Thats the best tip ive read for ages.
I just ran it on a lot of the fraudulent accounts people on the SS forum have identified. Pretty much every single on of them started uploading the stolen images from October 2018 onwards (original images 2013 or earlier). It looks like towards Q4 2018 a brand new SS security bug appeared, the known bugs got exploited industrially or maybe more and more image backs became available on torrents/black market.
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By the way, if you want to find the upload date for an image - they don't display it on the page - use the browser's View Source option and search for "datePublished".
Thats the best tip ive read for ages.
I just ran it on a lot of the fraudulent accounts people on the SS forum have identified. Pretty much every single on of them started uploading the stolen images from October 2018 onwards (original images 2013 or earlier). It looks like towards Q4 2018 a brand new SS security bug appeared, the known bugs got exploited industrially or maybe more and more image backs became available on torrents/black market.
Sorry but the preview without a watermark has been around way before 2018, it's been that way back to pretty much forever, just that it's one way to get free, not so large, downloads. This in not a SS only bug as there are also sites that have links to get free from IS or AS as well. Part of the problem is even easier, if you can view an image, it's on your computer in the cache. Anything you see, is already downloaded. In other words, if a site shows an image, the person with a computer view it, already has a copy. That's the way the web works.
You findings are also flawed as there are a number of older thief accounts that haven't been detected because they are using parts of vectors, making changes and they don't show up as easily as stolen photos that are just cropped, flipped, re-colored or filtered. Vector thieves who make composites or use parts are harder to find. I just discovered one that has over 1.3 million images. They could have a subscription, and legally download all they want.
Well that makes things more complicated :)
I looked at some images, recent and older, and the every-third-image numbering scheme wasn't always the way things were. So images from the early days - I checked some from 2006 - are sequential. By 2011 (when I came back from exclusivity and started uploading again, the numbers are every third.
I did check some searches by number just to see if other people got assigned numbers in between my image numbers from a batch uploaded sequentially, and I can't find anything when searching for those "in between" numbers, so I assume they're skipping them completely.
That does affect the ratio, but it doesn't affect the overall patterns and how they change over time. There was higher rate of rejections from late 2016 and they accepted almost everything in the summer of 2017, for example.
This morning I dug around to see when the image assigned numbers really jumped up, and was able to narrow it down to something happening on Jan 20, 2018 where image numbers in the high 797 millions were followed - on the same day - by numbers in the low 1 billion range. I can't find any online content (with some quick spot checks; I'm too lazy to do more) with image numbers in the 800 million or 900 million range, so I think they skipped some numbers.
I think I'm just going to let this investigation go as there's too little solid data.
By the way, if you want to find the upload date for an image - they don't display it on the page - use the browser's View Source option and search for "datePublished".
Good discovery Jo Ann I started using the view page source and searching for "datep" (just shorter, nothing different) to see datepublished. Makes finding the first upload easier. Although unlikely the real artist could have been the second to upload if they had the same image somewhere else, where it was stolen, and the creator didn't upload to SS until more recently. Unlikely but possible.
I found the file numbering many years ago as far as I could see, the images were numbered 3 apart from the beginning. I was playing and bored at the office and started searching for first the oldest image, and then there was a big gap, until the system actually went live. I also located Jon's portfolio which was fun.
Not disagreeing that reviews are more lenient or many more images are getting in, almost without review. Just noting that if you used file numbers, the actual number of images uploaded and rejected would be 1/3rd. I don't know if that would change the acceptance rate?
Also as noted, people get rejections and re-up images. I know I have. When I send in a batch of Editorial and they are rejected for focus or some higher image standard (old days) I'd wait until Monday and send them again. Invariably 100% accepted. Just like now, some of the reviewers must just make some quick cash by wholesale rejects, and we pay by having to upload everything over again.
By the same theory some could also be accepting based on looking at a few in a batch and passing all.
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Shutterstock Milestones:
September 21, 2006 - Shutterstock surpasses one million stock photos
February 20, 2009 -Shutterstock reaches 6 million photos, (5 million 2.5 years)
February 14, 2010 - Shutterstock reaches 10 million Photos (4 million 12 months)
June 19, 2012 - Shutterstock reaches 20 million stock Images (10 Million 28 months)
October 30, 2013 - Shutterstock reaches 30 million images (10 million 15 months)
August 4, 2014 - Shutterstock celebrates 40 million images in it's collection. (10 million 10 months)
December 31, 2014 - 46.8 million images in the collection. (1 million new files per month)
March 3, 2015 - 50 Million Image mark is reached (10 million in 7 months for those watching)
August 12, 2015 - 60 Million Images (10 million in 160 days. 62,500 new files a day)
December 15, 2015 - 70 Million Images (four months)
March 26, 2016 - 80 Million
June 16, 2016 - 90 Million (10 million under three months)
Sept 8, 2016 - 100 Million
February 2017 - 110 Million
October 28, 2017 – 160 Million
December 29, 2017 - 170 Million (10 million new two months)
Feb. 24, 2018 - 180 Million
April 16, 2018 - 190 Million (20 million new in 3.5 months)
June 10, 2018 - 200 Million (10 million new in 55 days)
August 1, 2018 - 210 Million (10 million new in 53 days)
Sept. 26th 2018 - 220 Million images now on Shutterstock
Nov. 12th 2018 - 231 Million images on Shutterstock.
Dec. 26th, 2018 - 240 Million images Shutterstock (10 million new in 44 days)
Feb. 14, 2019 - 250 Million images on Shutterstock (10 million new 49 days)
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At this rate (10 million images accepted average every 50 days), in just over 10 years there will be 1 billion images on there :/
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At this rate (10 million images accepted average every 50 days), in just over 10 years there will be 1 billion images on there :/
Yes and this one was late because I made a note and forgot to post the Feb. 14th milestone.
70 Million new images in 2018. I don't know if the limit has been reached and the exponential growth will stop. We'll see in about 45 days on April 1st. ::) April Fools Day
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At this rate (10 million images accepted average every 50 days), in just over 10 years there will be 1 billion images on there :/
Yes and this one was late because I made a note and forgot to post the Feb. 14th milestone.
70 Million new images in 2018. I don't know if the limit has been reached and the exponential growth will stop. We'll see in about 45 days on April 1st. ::) April Fools Day
Tried to sneak another one by me eh?
March 31st, 2019 260 million images available on Shutterstock.
I'll be back around May 15th... for another 10 million images. And just because I sometimes like being redundant for the obvious. As many people noticed Microstock had stopped the rapid growth of the previous years, roughly in 2012.
February 14, 2010 - Shutterstock reaches 10 million Photos (4 million 12 months)
June 19, 2012 - Shutterstock reaches 20 million stock Images (10 Million 28 months)
That's right, every month and a half, we are competing with 10 million new images, which back then took 2 1/4 years to add 10 million images.
Competition is what used to take five years to be uploaded, then 2 1/4 years, when Microstock was new and growing, is now uploaded every month and a half.
Every 90 days we get more new images as competition, than there were total on SS in 2012.
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And yet...I sell, nearly every day with only 1400 photos and 800 videos online and sometimes I don‘t upload for weeks or months.
There must be something to their software that seems to be able to present content that buyers really need or prefers portfolios with a healthy sales to upload volume.
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And yet...I sell, nearly every day with only 1400 photos and 800 videos online and sometimes I don‘t upload for weeks or months.
There must be something to their software that seems to be able to present content that buyers really need or prefers portfolios with a healthy sales to upload volume.
One thing that sometimes gets overlooked is the simple fact buyers will only ever buy what they need despite all the conspiracy theories. I'm surprised my sales hold up as well as they do. I only regard myself as reasonably competent but in the last few years the standard of what now gets accepted is risible.
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And yet...I sell, nearly every day with only 1400 photos and 800 videos online and sometimes I don‘t upload for weeks or months.
There must be something to their software that seems to be able to present content that buyers really need or prefers portfolios with a healthy sales to upload volume.
One thing that sometimes gets overlooked is the simple fact buyers will only ever buy what they need despite all the conspiracy theories. I'm surprised my sales hold up as well as they do. I only regard myself as reasonably competent but in the last few years the standard of what now gets accepted is risible.
I suppose I shouldn't make it look like my sales have gone dead or that making a note of 10 million new images, is any kind of comment on my personal sales. What I have that sells, continues to get downloads. The Crapstock that used to get downloads in the Golden Era ;D ::) doesn't get much activity. In other words, my better images, still sell, my junk and marginal efforts, are getting what they should = little or nothing.
I don't understand why some people think that just because they upload some snapshot, they should get downloads. Or if they make 10,000 snapshots, they should make more money. There are still people with portfolios in the 200-300 range of video, that are making over $1,000 a month from those. Quality still sells.
Maybe the buyers have to work harder to find the best images, but it seems they do, and they aren't downloading spam or video turned into backgrounds frame by frame, or terrible blurred images, just because they see them first.
Let me put this another way. I don't think that 10 million new images every 90 days has hurt the sales of my good, interesting or unique images. Sure there's much more competition. But as long as the competition keeps making what's most popular and what I don't, and the competition is uploading walkabout snapshots, I don't feel threatened. (I also don't rely on this income, so of course I can be less tense about market swings and changes.)
So if you please my posts about the numbers are mostly just notes about the numbers. If I hadn't tracked down the year by year, someone would be asking "How many images did SS have in 2010?" :)
That and to answer the never ending questions about, what happened and why doesn't the market stay the same as it was for many people? Competition
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In honor of making it back to over 1,000 posts, for the third time, I'm posting the May/
June Milestone in advance. ;D
264,795,106 royalty-free stock images / 1,676,474 new stock images added this week Today
Yes I'm cheating. I had originally said May 27th, or that weekend. Not even half way to that date, in fact, a rounded two weeks from March 31st, and nearly half way.
Looks like nothing has slowed, as I would have hoped. Last period was about 45 days for 10 million new images. Before that maybe 49 days, and this month, we're going to break the 45 day record. Closer to 40 days. Will this ever stop?
(https://i.postimg.cc/YqSKbn7s/microstock-sinking-sales-future.jpg)
But since this is an edit, not a reply or new message, I expect it to just sit here until May unnoticed. ;)
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1,000 posts?
Congratulations now get back to work! ;D
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March 31st, 2019 260 million images available on Shutterstock.
I'll be back around May 15th... for another 10 million images. And just because I sometimes like being redundant for the obvious. As many people noticed Microstock had stopped the rapid growth of the previous years, roughly in 2012.
February 14, 2010 - Shutterstock reaches 10 million Photos (4 million 12 months)
June 19, 2012 - Shutterstock reaches 20 million stock Images (10 Million 28 months)
That's right, every month and a half, we are competing with 10 million new images, which back then took 2 1/4 years to add 10 million images.
Competition is what used to take five years to be uploaded, then 2 1/4 years, when Microstock was new and growing, is now uploaded every month and a half.
Every 90 days we get more new images as competition, than there were total on SS in 2012.
Well I was wrong, May 10th Shutterstock passed 270,000,000 images. 40 days for those who are counting, kind of like raining images, a flood of epic proportions, for 40 days and 40 nights? ::) When will the flood of competition slow down?
Next update? June 20th? Oh make it the 21st the longest day of the year.
(https://www.bing.com/th?id=OIP.SRYaWr25zfX7YvW6SoowEwHaDt&pid=Api&rs=1&p=0)
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Over 280,000,000 royalty-free images on Shutterstock. June 26th or 27th, 2019 depending on your location.
Nothing much more to say. Another 10 million images accepted to compete with ours, 47 days.
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Over 280,000,000 royalty-free images on Shutterstock. June 26th or 27th, 2019 depending on your location.
Nothing much more to say. Another 10 million images accepted to compete with ours, 47 days.
you need not to re-open the thread again and again.. we all can see the future, you are adding more depression.
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Over 280,000,000 royalty-free images on Shutterstock. June 26th or 27th, 2019 depending on your location.
Nothing much more to say. Another 10 million images accepted to compete with ours, 47 days.
you need not to re-open the thread again and again.. we all can see the future, you are adding more depression.
But it's exciting news and every 10 million images I need to report the next milestone. What do you want, darkness and no accountability?
Yeah, it is depressing but that's business in Microstock. ;D
(https://i.postimg.cc/13g3jb9y/train-wreck-microstock.jpg)
But since you asked... watch around October 1st when Shutterstock passes the 300,000,000 images mark. (https://i.postimg.cc/BbfL8CWQ/stirpot.gif)
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I'm never going to be a "top seller" because I shoot a narrow niche (North American wildlife, nature, scenics), but sales from my relatively small portfolio have continued growing even as the overall number of images available skyrockets into the hundreds of millions.
Buyers are looking for what they're looking for. My niche is small and specialized, but my images are good and somehow buyers looking for them still do find them and buy them.
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I'm never going to be a "top seller" because I shoot a narrow niche (North American wildlife, nature, scenics), but sales from my relatively small portfolio have continued growing even as the overall number of images available skyrockets into the hundreds of millions.
Buyers are looking for what they're looking for. My niche is small and specialized, but my images are good and somehow buyers looking for them still do find them and buy them.
I'm mostly in the same situation, limited access, specialized makes up over half of my collection and isn't going to enable me to quit my day job. ;) Still most of my sales, month after month, are from art and creative not my Editorial. The Editorial however does add some consistency in the Summer months, nearly nothing in between Oct - April.
I suspect from friends, who are much smarter and better at what sells on Microstock, almost everyone is getting lower returns for their work, and adding new files is just treading water, not making any large gains. The residual income from years of work, is not staying steady, but instead is dropping, every year.
The exception has been video sales, and I still haven't been doing anything much in that area.
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I suspect from friends, who are much smarter and better at what sells on Microstock, almost everyone is getting lower returns for their work, and adding new files is just treading water, not making any large gains. The residual income from years of work, is not staying steady, but instead is dropping, every year.
Agree Pete.
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Here's to Saturday, just in case it was disappointing enough.
08-17-2019 Over 290,010,114 royalty-free images with 1,045,939 new stock images added weekly
Maybe with the new similar policy we'll see a slow down of these numbers?
Over 280,000,000 royalty-free images on Shutterstock. June 26th or 27th, 2019 depending on your location.
Nothing much more to say. Another 10 million images accepted to compete with ours, 47 days.
5 + 31 + 17 = 53 days this time. The record was 47 days for 10 million new images.
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Now the pace is 1,413,091 new stock images added weekly? I thought the similar rejections would curb the flood.
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Now the pace is 1,413,091 new stock images added weekly? I thought the similar rejections would curb the flood.
That is 2.33 files accepted by Shutterstock every second.
201,870 files accepted every single day.
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Offtopic. I was reading in general for free sites.
Unsplash curation and handpicked images of the week/by subject
sound (don't get me wrong, please)
like shouting quality over those statistics quantity...
:(
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The non-stop flood does in a way surprise me. Most images won't sell. You would think at some point word would get around and the sentiment might be: "don't bother" regarding uploading for the casual photog.
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The non-stop flood does in a way surprise me. Most images won't sell. You would think at some point word would get around and the sentiment might be: "don't bother" regarding uploading for the casual photog.
I suspect a lot of people load a tiny number of images the forget about it. Theres still a lot of suckers/phototraphers to recruit thinking they will earn big cash from random phone pics.
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The non-stop flood does in a way surprise me. Most images won't sell. You would think at some point word would get around and the sentiment might be: "don't bother" regarding uploading for the casual photog.
I suspect a lot of people load a tiny number of images the forget about it. Theres still a lot of suckers/phototraphers to recruit thinking they will earn big cash from random phone pics.
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Actually they are pushed, anyone with a decent phone would fall into trap. Having some time (from banning) I re-entered Youtube to just realise that the same photographers-slash-videographers-slash-storytellers-cinematographers-slash-buy my luts people are on top of search
plus a new generation of photographers-slash-videographers-slash-storytellers-cinematographers-slash-cover a documentary or event with a mobile.
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Now the pace is 1,413,091 new stock images added weekly? I thought the similar rejections would curb the flood.
That is 2.33 files accepted by Shutterstock every second.
201,870 files accepted every single day.
When I looked yesterday, I was wondering if SS would reach 299,000,000 by the weekend. Suddenly this morning - 299,311,094 royalty-free stock images / 1,217,514 new stock images added this week. If I'm remembering right that means 600,000 added overnight.
300 million isn't far away. So much for the similar rejections curbing the uploads!
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I'd like to see a live stream of all the new images added each second :P
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I'd like to see a live stream of all the new images added each second :P
I dunno for uploads but this might (guess by reading others) apply for ...rejections!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tyWwEm-rKUY
:P
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Shutterstock Milestones:
September 21, 2006 - Shutterstock surpasses one million stock photos
February 20, 2009 -Shutterstock reaches 6 million photos, (5 million 2.5 years)
February 14, 2010 - Shutterstock reaches 10 million Photos (4 million 12 months)
June 19, 2012 - Shutterstock reaches 20 million stock Images (10 Million 28 months)
October 30, 2013 - Shutterstock reaches 30 million images (10 million 15 months)
August 4, 2014 - Shutterstock celebrates 40 million images in it's collection. (10 million 10 months)
December 31, 2014 - 46.8 million images in the collection. (1 million new files per month)
March 3, 2015 - 50 Million Image mark is reached (10 million in 7 months for those watching)
August 12, 2015 - 60 Million Images (10 million in 160 days. 62,500 new files a day)
December 15, 2015 - 70 Million Images (four months)
March 26, 2016 - 80 Million
June 16, 2016 - 90 Million (10 million under three months)
Sept 8, 2016 - 100 Million
February 2017 - 110 Million
October 28, 2017 – 160 Million
December 29, 2017 - 170 Million (10 million new two months)
Feb. 24, 2018 - 180 Million
April 16, 2018 - 190 Million (20 million new in 3.5 months)
June 10, 2018 - 200 Million (10 million new in 55 days)
August 1, 2018 - 210 Million (10 million new in 53 days)
Sept. 26th 2018 - 220 Million images now on Shutterstock
Nov. 12th 2018 - 231 Million images on Shutterstock.
Dec. 26th, 2018 - 240 Million images Shutterstock (10 million new in 44 days)
Feb. 14, 2019 - 250 Million images on Shutterstock (10 million new 49 days)
I left some off, maybe I'll go back some day and fill them in. Remember when many of us started, actually I was before that, 2010 total on SS was 10 million images. The time where many say the bottom fell out was 2012 = 20 million images. I really don't have any expectations for anything getting better, ever!
With that: 300,043,361 royalty-free stock images / 1,354,401 new stock images added this week
There we are, October 14th, 2019, averaging 3.5 Million new images a month over the period since there were only 10 million photos on the site, total. Probably unfair to do a 6 year average, but that's where we are now.
What took 3 years at the starts is now added every 2 months. Does anyone still wonder why our sales are down? ::)
300,043,361 royalty-free stock images
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The more images that are added and the less that's paid out per contributor, the more it seems to attract people to the pot. Obviously nobody in the stock game has their own financial wellbeing in mind. Basically it's a good way to lose money fast but yet it seems to attract more and more lemmings.
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The more images that are added and the less that's paid out per contributor, the more it seems to attract people to the pot. Obviously nobody in the stock game has their own financial wellbeing in mind. Basically it's a good way to lose money fast but yet it seems to attract more and more lemmings.
Obviously people in the stock game think it will benefit them financially for many it doesn't of course
I think there are two reasons
1) prospective contributors believe the hype and enter the market without doing any research
2) Some people believe they can beat the "odds" and some in fact do.
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The more images that are added and the less that's paid out per contributor, the more it seems to attract people to the pot. Obviously nobody in the stock game has their own financial wellbeing in mind. Basically it's a good way to lose money fast but yet it seems to attract more and more lemmings.
Interesting analysis and I'd say correct. Exception would be (just because I'm talking about myself? ;) ) If someone is already shooting the photos and find uploading and getting some more out of them, and interesting Winter hobby = HOBBY! not dependent on the income, not relying on the money, not needing the money, but enjoying what comes in as a way to buy more better lenses, newer cameras and personal enjoyment.
Let me put that another way? Don't quit your day job for a dedicated career in stock photography.
Obviously people in the stock game think it will benefit them financially for many it doesn't of course
I think there are two reasons
1) prospective contributors believe the hype and enter the market without doing any research
2) Some people believe they can beat the "odds" and some in fact do.
1) Most of the hype used to come from forums, people selling books and people who made money from referrals. Some made more money from that than their stock photo sales. That's history, now we get more truth for some reason?
2) Some people in garage bands, actually make it to the big time, most don't. You can throw a rotten stick and hit a talented singer or fantastic flashy guitar player. I know hundreds of them, and have played in bands for 40 years. None have made "the big time" they record in Nashville, have gone to the local studio and made CDs (which they pedal on the web or at gigs), that have local followings.
They are making extra money as hired guns, like I was, on a list. Work for hire bands that played from a book and there were four groups with the same name, the owners of the name hired from a list. If you were good, you got band #3 if there were too many jobs, he made another group from the list. Group #5. I'm probably the only person that played in all four bands, because one of the owners was a drummer, that band would never "hire" a drummer. He was sick, I filled in. ;) Band #2 was the Brother of band #1, that worked, and band #3 was the original guitar player.
Distant allusion, but what I mean is, true some people make money on Microstock, most do not. Some make a living, most do not. Just being good, or above average, is not enough. This isn't a good choice for an income business, but as both of you have agreed, still people think they can. It's not about chance like a slot machine or the lottery. Not a game, not rigged.
Microstock is like a business, imagine farming, ranching, or food production, which means producing a commodity, that's already over produced. Not only is competition way beyond what it should be, but price cutting is the patch your agents have chosen to make more sales. Commissions are lower than ever, rewards are down. Good thing about food is people keep eating. Bad thing about images is, they are consumed and aren't perishable, the same one can be sold over and over.
Flooded market, low return and the best are still competing with the new, for the same buyers. Not much room for growth is there? Flat, stagnation is more like it.
We all see new people who do some pretty great and inspired work, but what does that mean? Just another producer of stock photos, smaller slice of the pie, less for them and less for us.
And still new people come, believing they can make money selling whatever they make at home. That's what the agencies are selling, hope, not reality. I hope anyone who reads this can accept that they enjoy what they do, more than the financial rewards. Because at least then, it's worth the time and effort to find personal satisfaction in making photos.
If not... well just read the posts here from disillusioned, angry and unhappy people. (https://i.postimg.cc/CLxs22Vg/beatdeadhorse.gif) There are more of those than there are people with a positive attitude, who are enjoying their time, as an income hobby. Like I've said before, easy for me, I don't depend on this discretionary income, I just like making pictures and even more I like spending the money I make from Stock photography. Too bad, it's less every year and more work.
Yup, that's me: (https://i.postimg.cc/jddXZ56d/microdummywave.gif)
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1) prospective contributors believe the hype and enter the market without doing any research
If I may comment on that, there are not actuall resources on failure and agency tactics. Just "how i earned {amount of money}" and referrals even to crappy agencies. And a total recycling of "news".
The actual research and evaluation perhaps is uploading and getting
rejected,
payed $1,37 per clip
etc etc.
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1) prospective contributors believe the hype and enter the market without doing any research
If I may comment on that, there are not actuall resources on failure and agency tactics. Just "how i earned {amount of money}" and referrals even to crappy agencies. And a total recycling of "news".
The actual research and evaluation perhaps is uploading and getting
rejected,
payed $1,37 per clip
etc etc.
You only really need to look at the total number of images on shutterstock and divide that by the total amount paid out to see the odds are against you. I'm sure though huge numbers do try it for a month or two and realise its not for them.
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1) prospective contributors believe the hype and enter the market without doing any research
If I may comment on that, there are not actuall resources on failure and agency tactics. Just "how i earned {amount of money}" and referrals even to crappy agencies. And a total recycling of "news".
The actual research and evaluation perhaps is uploading and getting
rejected,
payed $1,37 per clip
etc etc.
You only really need to look at the total number of images on shutterstock and divide that by the total amount paid out to see the odds are against you. I'm sure though huge numbers do try it for a month or two and realise its not for them.
I'd have to dig through old saved files, but if I remember, 90% of the people with artist accounts on SS have no images and a much smaller group has 1,000 or more. Could be they join, upload, get rejected and discover it's not that easy. Or they upload and don't get a download in three months, so they pull everything and drop the idea.
I can't say I'm concerned with the all about total number of images as much as how many are the same as mine or better.
I don't care a bit if there are (these are real numbers) 1,423,808 sliced vegetables stock photos, because I don't think I have one. I do have 18 of the 374 XXXX stock photos, and a nice number on page one. Or another with 6 of mine on the first page, where there are only two pages. :) And another I'm working on today: 758 XXXX stock photos where I have 6 of the first ten photos. Uploaded yesterday is now number 15 on the first page.
Make a note: new images get featured exposure on the first page! (https://i.postimg.cc/Wb1BsjkY/cool-up.gif) If they don't sell, it's more about the buyers, competition and the images, than SS manipulating sales. Think about that folks?
Right, these are not "best selling" subjects, but if someone wants them, I'm on top and showing vs 27,730 spider and fly stock photos, which I have a couple and I don't have any idea what page. Hard to sell anything when buyers never get that deep into the pages.
You are right on the basic, most basic, outstanding point. The odds are against anyone new, ever making it like most of the people here did in the past. Uphill battle, millions of new images every week. Competition is fierce! Just hanging on, for people who have much better work and better images than I do, has become a hard fight. How can someone new compete with that?
New members can be featured but if they don't have better images, they are going nowhere. Anyone here can ask themselves, how long did it take to get the idea of what actually sells and what's a good stock photo for Microstock? And back to sheer numbers, if I have 5% of all the XXX photos and mine are on the first page and have been since 2010, I'm going to sell more! I don't care about 300 million images of who knows what else. They aren't my competition.
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if I have 5% of all the XXX photos
...you would be Hugh Hefner... :P :D
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Another 10 million new images, sometime early in December. the tracking is getting ridiculous as every couple months, there are another 10 million new images.
I'll try to remember to note the total on December 31st 2019 and possibly July 1st 2020. That will cover the general idea of how many millions of images are being added.