Quote from: Pauws99 on August 04, 2017, 07:44

Quote from: derek on August 04, 2017, 07:26

Quote from: Pauws99 on August 04, 2017, 06:42

Quote from: Mantis on August 04, 2017, 01:59

Quote from: YadaYadaYada on August 03, 2017, 23:30

Quote from: Shelma1 on August 03, 2017, 23:22
Revenue per download increased for them. It doesn't necessarily mean it increased for us. As someone pointed out earlier, pushing new contributors with lower royalties to the top of the popular search could increase their RPD because they keep more of the moolah.

Could, but there's no proof or evidence that they do. They could have purple cows that give green milk. Show Me?

I liked your other idea better. Competition up 57% will hurt sales. 

Well, i will gbe you one data pount. In a matter of a day, my income was cut in half....about a grand a mont to less than $500. Now on my third month of this. It was a search change. Search changes happen over night. This was not a slow, gradual, incremental change. So the question is why would they do that? My very logical hypothesis is that they are pushing lower royalty content to the top because it costsbthem less. It shows in their financial. Pretty easy to assess. Can i prove it? No but i sure can make a reasonable argument that its not easy to defelect by using a purple cow analogy.

Its possible but I doubt it as I think the risk of losing customers who can't find the best images offsets it I think. I just think as they have said they are always tweaking the algorithm to maximise sales and sometimes this has unfortunate consequences for some contributors. If they are doing it maybe it does explain some of the drop in downloads and its not a smart move.

I been with them since the start Offset that is and they certainly have some top notch content but for buyers first searching 0.25c images at SS and then go over to offset searching images for sometimes hundreds of dollars??  thats a big step! too much! these kind of buyers probably go straight to these macro agencies prepared to pay decent money.

not what I meant ;-). The money saved by prioritising lower cost images is not as much as the cost of losing customers.

Yep! true!

Quote from: Bad Company on August 02, 2017, 18:45
just hope SS doesn't send us an email- "Dear Contributors in an effort to increase your sales we will need to reduce your commission rates to spend the additional savings on more marketing" 

Or more luxury office space


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Quote from: Liorpt on August 04, 2017, 12:25

Quote from: Bad Company on August 02, 2017, 18:45
just hope SS doesn't send us an email- "Dear Contributors in an effort to increase your sales we will need to reduce your commission rates to spend the additional savings on more marketing" 

Or more luxury office space


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I do get the feeling they are letting costs run away from them. Shareholders are forgiving when sales/stock is rising less so when things not looking so rosy. https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=sstk+share+price&oq=SSTK&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j69i60j69i57j69i60j69i61j69i59.2220j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
Looks like the price is dropping after every quarterly report...not a good sign.

Quote from: Pauws99 on August 04, 2017, 07:44

Quote from: derek on August 04, 2017, 07:26

Quote from: Pauws99 on August 04, 2017, 06:42

Quote from: Mantis on August 04, 2017, 01:59

Quote from: YadaYadaYada on August 03, 2017, 23:30

Quote from: Shelma1 on August 03, 2017, 23:22
Revenue per download increased for them. It doesn't necessarily mean it increased for us. As someone pointed out earlier, pushing new contributors with lower royalties to the top of the popular search could increase their RPD because they keep more of the moolah.

Could, but there's no proof or evidence that they do. They could have purple cows that give green milk. Show Me?

I liked your other idea better. Competition up 57% will hurt sales. 

Well, i will gbe you one data pount. In a matter of a day, my income was cut in half....about a grand a mont to less than $500. Now on my third month of this. It was a search change. Search changes happen over night. This was not a slow, gradual, incremental change. So the question is why would they do that? My very logical hypothesis is that they are pushing lower royalty content to the top because it costsbthem less. It shows in their financial. Pretty easy to assess. Can i prove it? No but i sure can make a reasonable argument that its not easy to defelect by using a purple cow analogy.

Its possible but I doubt it as I think the risk of losing customers who can't find the best images offsets it I think. I just think as they have said they are always tweaking the algorithm to maximise sales and sometimes this has unfortunate consequences for some contributors. If they are doing it maybe it does explain some of the drop in downloads and its not a smart move.

I been with them since the start Offset that is and they certainly have some top notch content but for buyers first searching 0.25c images at SS and then go over to offset searching images for sometimes hundreds of dollars??  thats a big step! too much! these kind of buyers probably go straight to these macro agencies prepared to pay decent money.

not what I meant ;-). The money saved by prioritising lower cost images is not as much as the cost of losing customers.

You're assuming that the new content is lower quality or less commercial.  I am assuming that, as a whole, much of the new content is every bit as good as old, and it doesn't matter to the customer...it's seamless.  And I think that there is a probability in play here.  A certain percent of buyers just search and buy. Others use the search by age, popularity, etc. filters to find additional content if they can't find what they want in a basic default search.

mantis I dont think its a matter of good or bad content anymore its a matter of the agencies just piling on the pics for the sake of it. The more pics the more assets no matter what just keep em coming.

This amount of public scrutiny is precisely why some companies prefer to stay as private instead of going public!

Quote from: JaenStock on August 03, 2017, 14:47
I received a mail from shutter and said to shot tons of isolated marijuana images...

no, not good idea, already saturated! 
a better idea would be to send a packet of it to ss H.O.  as i am sure they are running low in stock (no pun intended) of
that ganja !!!

Why I don't find such a discussion on the Shutterstock forum?

Quote from: Mantis on August 04, 2017, 14:05

Quote from: Pauws99 on August 04, 2017, 07:44

Quote from: derek on August 04, 2017, 07:26

Quote from: Pauws99 on August 04, 2017, 06:42

Quote from: Mantis on August 04, 2017, 01:59

Quote from: YadaYadaYada on August 03, 2017, 23:30

Quote from: Shelma1 on August 03, 2017, 23:22
Revenue per download increased for them. It doesn't necessarily mean it increased for us. As someone pointed out earlier, pushing new contributors with lower royalties to the top of the popular search could increase their RPD because they keep more of the moolah.

Could, but there's no proof or evidence that they do. They could have purple cows that give green milk. Show Me?

I liked your other idea better. Competition up 57% will hurt sales. 

Well, i will gbe you one data pount. In a matter of a day, my income was cut in half....about a grand a mont to less than $500. Now on my third month of this. It was a search change. Search changes happen over night. This was not a slow, gradual, incremental change. So the question is why would they do that? My very logical hypothesis is that they are pushing lower royalty content to the top because it costsbthem less. It shows in their financial. Pretty easy to assess. Can i prove it? No but i sure can make a reasonable argument that its not easy to defelect by using a purple cow analogy.

Its possible but I doubt it as I think the risk of losing customers who can't find the best images offsets it I think. I just think as they have said they are always tweaking the algorithm to maximise sales and sometimes this has unfortunate consequences for some contributors. If they are doing it maybe it does explain some of the drop in downloads and its not a smart move.

I been with them since the start Offset that is and they certainly have some top notch content but for buyers first searching 0.25c images at SS and then go over to offset searching images for sometimes hundreds of dollars??  thats a big step! too much! these kind of buyers probably go straight to these macro agencies prepared to pay decent money.

not what I meant ;-). The money saved by prioritising lower cost images is not as much as the cost of losing customers.

You're assuming that the new content is lower quality or less commercial.  I am assuming that, as a whole, much of the new content is every bit as good as old, and it doesn't matter to the customer...it's seamless.  And I think that there is a probability in play here.  A certain percent of buyers just search and buy. Others use the search by age, popularity, etc. filters to find additional content if they can't find what they want in a basic default search.

To some extent but if the most saleable images by whoever are pushed back "artificially" then this will reduce the overall quality of the search.

Quote from: etudiante_rapide on August 03, 2017, 21:15


yes, 2 scenarios possible ; one good for us, other tragic.
1) Oringer short the stock and waiting for the price to collapse then go back in to buy up everything, then declare SS private
2) Getty also short the stock and wait also for the price to collapse then become the main shareholder and we are all dead ducks ...
as money will not make us happy, because it 's money Getty intends to keep for themselves.

scenario on is unlikely, as Oringer already makes enough money , he does not need to own SS anymore as if already mention, micro is dead, why would he bother to keep ss???

Oringer appears to be buying shares in Shutterstock

http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/sstk/ownership-summary

Really??  somehow I doubt that.

Quote from: derek on August 05, 2017, 13:32
Really??  somehow I doubt that.

Personally I believe what has been reported to Nasdaq rather than subjective opinion. Betting on the eventual success of SS which is comforting.

Quote from: Pauws99 on August 05, 2017, 06:40

Quote from: Mantis on August 04, 2017, 14:05

Quote from: Pauws99 on August 04, 2017, 07:44

Quote from: derek on August 04, 2017, 07:26

Quote from: Pauws99 on August 04, 2017, 06:42

Quote from: Mantis on August 04, 2017, 01:59

Quote from: YadaYadaYada on August 03, 2017, 23:30

Quote from: Shelma1 on August 03, 2017, 23:22
Revenue per download increased for them. It doesn't necessarily mean it increased for us. As someone pointed out earlier, pushing new contributors with lower royalties to the top of the popular search could increase their RPD because they keep more of the moolah.

Could, but there's no proof or evidence that they do. They could have purple cows that give green milk. Show Me?

I liked your other idea better. Competition up 57% will hurt sales. 

Well, i will gbe you one data pount. In a matter of a day, my income was cut in half....about a grand a mont to less than $500. Now on my third month of this. It was a search change. Search changes happen over night. This was not a slow, gradual, incremental change. So the question is why would they do that? My very logical hypothesis is that they are pushing lower royalty content to the top because it costsbthem less. It shows in their financial. Pretty easy to assess. Can i prove it? No but i sure can make a reasonable argument that its not easy to defelect by using a purple cow analogy.

Its possible but I doubt it as I think the risk of losing customers who can't find the best images offsets it I think. I just think as they have said they are always tweaking the algorithm to maximise sales and sometimes this has unfortunate consequences for some contributors. If they are doing it maybe it does explain some of the drop in downloads and its not a smart move.

I been with them since the start Offset that is and they certainly have some top notch content but for buyers first searching 0.25c images at SS and then go over to offset searching images for sometimes hundreds of dollars??  thats a big step! too much! these kind of buyers probably go straight to these macro agencies prepared to pay decent money.

not what I meant ;-). The money saved by prioritising lower cost images is not as much as the cost of losing customers.

You're assuming that the new content is lower quality or less commercial.  I am assuming that, as a whole, much of the new content is every bit as good as old, and it doesn't matter to the customer...it's seamless.  And I think that there is a probability in play here.  A certain percent of buyers just search and buy. Others use the search by age, popularity, etc. filters to find additional content if they can't find what they want in a basic default search.

To some extent but if the most saleable images by whoever are pushed back "artificially" then this will reduce the overall quality of the search.

Yes and no.  How does new content become 'most sellable' if it is buried the moment it is submitted?

Quote from: Mantis on August 05, 2017, 14:18

Quote from: Pauws99 on August 05, 2017, 06:40

Quote from: Mantis on August 04, 2017, 14:05

Quote from: Pauws99 on August 04, 2017, 07:44

Quote from: derek on August 04, 2017, 07:26

Quote from: Pauws99 on August 04, 2017, 06:42

Quote from: Mantis on August 04, 2017, 01:59

Quote from: YadaYadaYada on August 03, 2017, 23:30

Quote from: Shelma1 on August 03, 2017, 23:22
Revenue per download increased for them. It doesn't necessarily mean it increased for us. As someone pointed out earlier, pushing new contributors with lower royalties to the top of the popular search could increase their RPD because they keep more of the moolah.

Could, but there's no proof or evidence that they do. They could have purple cows that give green milk. Show Me?

I liked your other idea better. Competition up 57% will hurt sales. 

Well, i will gbe you one data pount. In a matter of a day, my income was cut in half....about a grand a mont to less than $500. Now on my third month of this. It was a search change. Search changes happen over night. This was not a slow, gradual, incremental change. So the question is why would they do that? My very logical hypothesis is that they are pushing lower royalty content to the top because it costsbthem less. It shows in their financial. Pretty easy to assess. Can i prove it? No but i sure can make a reasonable argument that its not easy to defelect by using a purple cow analogy.

Its possible but I doubt it as I think the risk of losing customers who can't find the best images offsets it I think. I just think as they have said they are always tweaking the algorithm to maximise sales and sometimes this has unfortunate consequences for some contributors. If they are doing it maybe it does explain some of the drop in downloads and its not a smart move.

I been with them since the start Offset that is and they certainly have some top notch content but for buyers first searching 0.25c images at SS and then go over to offset searching images for sometimes hundreds of dollars??  thats a big step! too much! these kind of buyers probably go straight to these macro agencies prepared to pay decent money.

not what I meant ;-). The money saved by prioritising lower cost images is not as much as the cost of losing customers.

You're assuming that the new content is lower quality or less commercial.  I am assuming that, as a whole, much of the new content is every bit as good as old, and it doesn't matter to the customer...it's seamless.  And I think that there is a probability in play here.  A certain percent of buyers just search and buy. Others use the search by age, popularity, etc. filters to find additional content if they can't find what they want in a basic default search.

To some extent but if the most saleable images by whoever are pushed back "artificially" then this will reduce the overall quality of the search.

Yes and no.  How does new content become 'most sellable' if it is buried the moment it is submitted?

I do think this is a problem...again whether old or new contributor there's just so much new stuff much of which of dubious quality that it must be almost impossible to sift out the good stuff which is maybe why new content is struggling.

The thing is this!  most sites are pushing subscription packages! they are " telling"  the buyers what they want to sell what they want the buyer to buy. They are not really giving the buyers a choice of what the buyer wants them to buy.

A personal friend of mine is a part owner in one of the middle-tier agencies and thats what he says. It renders more money for the agency but less for the contributor so in order to float and stay alive in this cut-throat business thats what they have to do.

Myself?  I feel its a load of crap really!  I mean one reasons why the smaller Rm/Rf agencies stay alive so well is the fact they accept and promote quality not quantity. SS pride themselves in telling the world they have billions of images!  fine!  but who in their right mind wants to sit there wading through page after page of irrelevent material?
I think ultimately its suicide!

Quote from: namussi on August 05, 2017, 09:39

Quote from: etudiante_rapide on August 03, 2017, 21:15


yes, 2 scenarios possible ; one good for us, other tragic.
1) Oringer short the stock and waiting for the price to collapse then go back in to buy up everything, then declare SS private
2) Getty also short the stock and wait also for the price to collapse then become the main shareholder and we are all dead ducks ...
as money will not make us happy, because it 's money Getty intends to keep for themselves.

scenario on is unlikely, as Oringer already makes enough money , he does not need to own SS anymore as if already mention, micro is dead, why would he bother to keep ss???

Oringer appears to be buying shares in Shutterstock

http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/sstk/ownership-summary

Did he buy those or did he get those awarded? Not the same thing. He is paid $1 a year but has stock options and rewards for company performance.

Why does Warren Buffet keep running his company and investing? He's a billionaire? Just like the others on that list, they like what they do, it's not for more money, they have all that a small country could need to survive.

Quote from: Pauws99 on August 05, 2017, 15:30

Quote from: Mantis on August 05, 2017, 14:18

Quote from: Pauws99 on August 05, 2017, 06:40

Quote from: Mantis on August 04, 2017, 14:05

Quote from: Pauws99 on August 04, 2017, 07:44

Quote from: derek on August 04, 2017, 07:26

Quote from: Pauws99 on August 04, 2017, 06:42

Quote from: Mantis on August 04, 2017, 01:59

Quote from: YadaYadaYada on August 03, 2017, 23:30

Quote from: Shelma1 on August 03, 2017, 23:22
Revenue per download increased for them. It doesn't necessarily mean it increased for us. As someone pointed out earlier, pushing new contributors with lower royalties to the top of the popular search could increase their RPD because they keep more of the moolah.

Could, but there's no proof or evidence that they do. They could have purple cows that give green milk. Show Me?

I liked your other idea better. Competition up 57% will hurt sales. 

Well, i will gbe you one data pount. In a matter of a day, my income was cut in half....about a grand a mont to less than $500. Now on my third month of this. It was a search change. Search changes happen over night. This was not a slow, gradual, incremental change. So the question is why would they do that? My very logical hypothesis is that they are pushing lower royalty content to the top because it costsbthem less. It shows in their financial. Pretty easy to assess. Can i prove it? No but i sure can make a reasonable argument that its not easy to defelect by using a purple cow analogy.

Its possible but I doubt it as I think the risk of losing customers who can't find the best images offsets it I think. I just think as they have said they are always tweaking the algorithm to maximise sales and sometimes this has unfortunate consequences for some contributors. If they are doing it maybe it does explain some of the drop in downloads and its not a smart move.

I been with them since the start Offset that is and they certainly have some top notch content but for buyers first searching 0.25c images at SS and then go over to offset searching images for sometimes hundreds of dollars??  thats a big step! too much! these kind of buyers probably go straight to these macro agencies prepared to pay decent money.

not what I meant ;-). The money saved by prioritising lower cost images is not as much as the cost of losing customers.

You're assuming that the new content is lower quality or less commercial.  I am assuming that, as a whole, much of the new content is every bit as good as old, and it doesn't matter to the customer...it's seamless.  And I think that there is a probability in play here.  A certain percent of buyers just search and buy. Others use the search by age, popularity, etc. filters to find additional content if they can't find what they want in a basic default search.

To some extent but if the most saleable images by whoever are pushed back "artificially" then this will reduce the overall quality of the search.

Yes and no.  How does new content become 'most sellable' if it is buried the moment it is submitted?

I do think this is a problem...again whether old or new contributor there's just so much new stuff much of which of dubious quality that it must be almost impossible to sift out the good stuff which is maybe why new content is struggling.

Yea totally agree with that.

Quote from: YadaYadaYada on August 05, 2017, 15:57

Did he buy those or did he get those awarded? Not the same thing. He is paid $1 a year but has stock options and rewards for company performance.

Why does Warren Buffet keep running his company and investing? He's a billionaire? Just like the others on that list, they like what they do, it's not for more money, they have all that a small country could need to survive.

Being awarded stock options is not the same as being awarded stock.

The options allow you to buy shares at a predetermined price (which is usually well below the price on the open market).

You don't have to take up the options. But if you do, you have to spend money and so you buy the shares.

Sometimes people take up the options, buy the shares at a big discount, and then sell the shares for full price on the open market.

But the insider trades page on Nasdaq does not show that Mr Oringer has sold any shares yet.

they not have problems it seems...only us contributor who see our quote diluted every month cause the millions images of poor quality added each month and thousand of contributors added to spread the sales cake so most will not manage to have a payout for ages and ss can "dress " their balance much better than if they had to payout a lot more each and every month. that's why new contributor, even those who ask for critic here with portfolio that i couldn't even consider as portfolio can sell new files better than those who are on higher ranking.

persoanlly i hope all those agency starting from dreamstime and ss will collapse soon leaving i hope the field for new agency who value much more the work of photographer and stop this situation, accepting only quality portfolio.
this situation is only ridiculous.

Quote from: namussi on August 06, 2017, 08:34

Quote from: YadaYadaYada on August 05, 2017, 15:57

Did he buy those or did he get those awarded? Not the same thing. He is paid $1 a year but has stock options and rewards for company performance.

Why does Warren Buffet keep running his company and investing? He's a billionaire? Just like the others on that list, they like what they do, it's not for more money, they have all that a small country could need to survive.

Being awarded stock options is not the same as being awarded stock.

The options allow you to buy shares at a predetermined price (which is usually well below the price on the open market).

You don't have to take up the options. But if you do, you have to spend money and so you buy the shares.

Sometimes people take up the options, buy the shares at a big discount, and then sell the shares for full price on the open market.

But the insider trades page on Nasdaq does not show that Mr Oringer has sold any shares yet.

You can also elect to cash out the options if they're in the money. Cash settlement (aka free money) instead of buying stock.

Quote from: Bad Company on August 02, 2017, 18:45
just hope SS doesn't send us an email- "Dear Contributors in an effort to increase your sales we will need to reduce your commission rates to spend the additional savings on more marketing" 

I'm  pretty sure they already reduced commission rates as of June.  I used to see several $150 SODs a month.  This has now transformed to $1.50, $0.59, $0.75, $0.86 SODs. It's kind of sad, but I knew it would happen eventually.  I think everything started to change as soon as Adobe entered the market and pushed prices down.  It's hard to compete with a company that big.  My biggest fear of SS not paying as much per download has now come to fruition

Quote from: a and n on August 07, 2017, 20:44

I'm  pretty sure they already reduced commission rates as of June.  I used to see several $150 SODs a month.  This has now transformed to $1.50, $0.59, $0.75, $0.86 SODs. It's kind of sad, but I knew it would happen eventually.  I think everything started to change as soon as Adobe entered the market and pushed prices down.  It's hard to compete with a company that big.  My biggest fear of SS not paying as much per download has now come to fruition

defintely. even $28 would be nice today. in those days, i used to see $102, $80, and complain that some other times I get $28.
today you get nfa.  as for adobe, it only matters if you cannibalize your image and give it to both ss and adobe,etc..
but if you're not, i don't see why ss need to lower the prices. i don't think it's to compete with adobe;
i think it's to keep the giant share of the pie to themselves, and not share it with the contributors.

greed is the first thing when a company goes public.

Quote from: etudiante_rapide on August 07, 2017, 21:04
... as for adobe, it only matters if you cannibalize your image and give it to both ss and adobe,etc..
but if you're not, i don't see why ss need to lower the prices. i don't think it's to compete with adobe;
i think it's to keep the giant share of the pie to themselves, and not share it with the contributors.

How does that work? Some sort of Premium Access deal? Or ...?

Quotegreed is the first thing when a company goes public.

Quote from: OM on August 07, 2017, 17:47


You can also elect to cash out the options if they're in the money. Cash settlement (aka free money) instead of buying stock.

But why would you?

If the options are in the money, why not borrow some cash for a few days, buy the shares at a discount, and then sell them immediately. You'd make lots more money.

Even then, you might not need the cash if you time the settlement dates right.

Options are no longer free money. Once upon a time, maybe. But then the tax authorities and accounting standards people caught on.