Quote from: Copidosoma on January 26, 2016, 12:51

Quote from: BelieveInStock on January 26, 2016, 12:01

I got today $29.85 Enhanced sale.

That's completely impossible. Everyone knows that this new change has only one purpose, to screw contributors and help shareholders buy a new solid gold toilet.

Oh, wait, did you ever consider that you really "should be" getting $40.00 for that EL? I'll bet SS made a huge pile of money off of it. Besides all of the image hosting, sales, advertising, providing buyers with a place to consistently find a huge diversity of images, dealing with financial transactions what did they do to deserve to make ANY money off of your image? Practically criminal I say.

What I just reported the amount.

I know. My reply was entirely sarcastic. If you read all of the doom and gloom around here you would think that your results are actually impossible since the entire system is against "us"

So I have one data point that someone buys the 25-pack ELs - I just received my first at the new "improved" rate and the royalty was $20.39. Nice that they rounded up from 20.388, but that's all the good I can find in this cash grab.

So the SS coffers just swelled by an extra $7.61 on that sale.

Having been through a whole series of cash grabs from a whole series of greedy agencies, I feel entirely justified in complaining about this latest conversion of contributor cash to agency nice-big-yacht fund. Those of you newer to this racket feel free to celebrate SS's "improvement" in our circumstances

A EL poll over the course of a few months would give us a ball park idea of the spread of downloads each package is capturing on the buyer side.

Quote from: BelieveInStock on January 26, 2016, 12:54

Quote from: Copidosoma on January 26, 2016, 12:51

Quote from: BelieveInStock on January 26, 2016, 12:01

I got today $29.85 Enhanced sale.

That's completely impossible. Everyone knows that this new change has only one purpose, to screw contributors and help shareholders buy a new solid gold toilet.

Oh, wait, did you ever consider that you really "should be" getting $40.00 for that EL? I'll bet SS made a huge pile of money off of it. Besides all of the image hosting, sales, advertising, providing buyers with a place to consistently find a huge diversity of images, dealing with financial transactions what did they do to deserve to make ANY money off of your image? Practically criminal I say.

What I just reported the amount.

Strange that BelieveInStock did not mention the  $$$$$, resources and time investments that contributors provide.

The list is long and longer still for quality creative images and illustrations!

You are right. In the perfect world of mine it would be 50-50. I have no idea why Shutterstock considers 30% (or even less) a "sweet spot".

Quote from: gbalex on January 26, 2016, 12:32

I think older files are relegated to the lower rungs, if you have a newer port you will not be impacted much after reaching the top tier. I have watched many claim it is not impacting them only to see them come back and claim 30% drops when their files hit the threshold age. And SS can and does dynamically change that age. I see old files come to life for weeks at a time. They just do not stay there long no matter how good those files are or how much the customers like them.

Shutterstock is happy to sell good enough files at a lower price for increased profits in bursts. The one thing you can not do is keep your port from aging.

This is a theory like any other, or an opinion like any other. We will never know for sure.

In my opinion, the popularity algorithm, designed to promote trends dynamically, independent from long term file performance, is the reason for the old file surge, you mentioned.

But if by some unlikely remote possibility, your theory about file age is true, then it has nothing to do with the tiered revenue structure. You can very well be stuck on the first tier with old files. What you say is that ports and contributors are not penalised, once they reached the top tier, despite what some conspirationists like to believe.
So from this point of view, we agree.

When it happens to your port you will understand that it is not a theory. The over night drop drives the point home nicely and when it happens every year on the clock it becomes undeniable.

Quote from: gbalex on January 26, 2016, 15:17

Quote from: Zero Talent on January 26, 2016, 15:06

Quote from: gbalex on January 26, 2016, 12:32

I think older files are relegated to the lower rungs, if you have a newer port you will not be impacted much after reaching the top tier. I have watched many claim it is not impacting them only to see them come back and claim 30% drops when their files hit the threshold age. And SS can and does dynamically change that age. I see old files come to life for weeks at a time. They just do not stay there long no matter how good those files are or how much the customers like them.

Shutterstock is happy to sell good enough files at a lower price for increased profits in bursts. The one thing you can not do is keep your port from aging.

This is a theory like any other, or an opinion like any other. We will never know for sure.

In my opinion, the popularity algorithm, designed to promote trends dynamically, independent from long term file performance, is the reason for the old file surge, you mentioned.

But if by some unlikely remote possibility, your theory about file age is true, then it has nothing to do with the tiered revenue structure. You can very well be stuck on the first tier with old files. What you say is that ports and contributors are not penalised, once they reached the top tier, despite what some conspirationists like to believe.
So from this point of view, we agree.

When it happens to your port you will understand that it is not a theory. The over night drop drives the point home nicely and when it happens every year on the clock it becomes undeniable.

An "undeniable", warm and convenient "truth", indeed. It is much easier to blame external factors, instead of keeping your port competitive.

But I'm happy we agree there is neither port nor contributor penalty once the top tier is reached.

Feel free to imbibe in personal superiority and arrogance, however do not presume to twist my words.

This feels like the true nature of crowdfunding exploitation for the sake of higher profits for the shareholders. It was bound to happen when shutterstock went public and the new boss is wall street.

Letting more contributors in (releasing the floodgates) is bound to have a negative impact on everyone else's download numbers.

I'm just giving a probable scenario. When as a business decision to raise profits, you designate 3 image slots the first 3 pages only to the lowest tiered group to give them the unfair boost over the higher tiered images just for the sake to get more revenue. You would be stupid as a business NOT to do this especially with this new contributor payout scheme. More slots given = happier noobs... more money for SS. Lets just say the images are comparable to mine in quality. Why should they get seen while mine doesn't get a fair chance? This type of stuff isn't accountable but most likely probable. Maybe I am a conspiracy nut to think these thoughts but they make so much sense to me. hehe

out of 70 million images they will never know if they got the best image or not. if they search and get 200 pages of images and they wont know if the first 10 pages are newbiew photos or not. they will pick the photo they like best on those 10 pages, i doubt they will look further than 2000 images.

Quote from: Microstockphoto on January 27, 2016, 06:22

out of 70 million images they will never know if they got the best image or not. if they search and get 200 pages of images and they wont know if the first 10 pages are newbiew photos or not. they will pick the photo they like best on those 10 pages, i doubt they will look further than 2000 images.

Yes and how can a search engine define "best" anyway its subjective and in the eye of the buyer. Its not really about best its about "good enough for what I want" most stock is for images that will be glanced at for seconds not to be hung on the wall to be admired for years to come 

Nobody settles for good enough. Do you? When you have the choice to get a better camera for the same amount of money, you will go for it. You will not settle for an inferior product, even if it looks good enough.

When I search for keywords specific to my speciality, sometimes I find my photos on the 1st page (popularity or relevant), but most of the time, I find photos I would love to have on my port, because those photos are definitely better. And clearly much better than what can be found on, let's say, the 3rd page and beyond.
Customers don't behave differently.

FYI I'm not uploading tomatoes on white, handshakes or skies with fluffy clouds. That would be foolish, indeed.


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zero talent, tell me, how do you determine if you have the best image without checking all, lets say, 38,000 results for diversity in the office? are you going to check all 38,000 results?

i actually like this image on page 200 better than the image on page 1, both submitted roughly in the same period

page 200


page 1


were going off topic, apologies

zero talent, tell me, how do you determine if you have the best image without checking all, lets say, 38,000 results for diversity in the office? are you going to check all 38,000 results?

i actually like this image on page 200 better than the image on page 1, both submitted roughly in the same period

page 200


page 1


were going off topic, apologies

Purely subjective which one is best

zero talent, tell me, how do you determine if you have the best image without checking all, lets say, 38,000 results for diversity in the office? are you going to check all 38,000 results?

It's called crowdsourcing. The crowd "votes" for the most popular photos. Sometimes the popular vote doesn't match yours, but most of the time it is an indication of what the public (read customer) wants.
You can't have success if you fail to acknowledge this basic fact.

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