In honor of making it back to over 1,000 posts, for the third time, I'm posting the May/June Milestone in advance. 

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?



But since this is an edit, not a reply or new message, I expect it to just sit here until May unnoticed. 

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.

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.

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.

Now the pace is 1,413,091 new stock images added weekly? I thought the similar rejections would curb the flood.

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...

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.

Quote from: Uncle Pete on September 24, 2019, 22:42

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!

I'd like to see a live stream of all the new images added each second

I dunno for uploads but this might (guess by reading others) apply for ...rejections!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tyWwEm-rKUY

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.

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. 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: 

Quote

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.