MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => Shutterstock.com => Topic started by: Tantoon on June 13, 2013, 05:32
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Hi guys,
is anyone else facing a dramatic drop in sales?
last week things were normal, this week however, SS sales went down almost -40% (I don't think it's June!)
any idea ??? ?
Thanks..
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Normal sales for me.
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If my sales keep going like this, I might hit BME.
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Strange! still down.. like a back dive 8)
I need to change my job, it's like living in a mines field, you never know when it's gonna blow you up!
(sales, popular search, contributor's level etc..) these unpredictable things are nightmares.
If my sales keep going like this, I might hit BME.
best wishes ^^
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Lately, my SWINGS are wicked. $15 one day, $100 the next, $30, then $80, then $20, $15, $50.
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Please - if there's one re-occurring message on these
forums worth paying attention to it's:
Don't fret over day to day sales. Don't worry about
week to week sales. Don't even stew over your month
to month results....take note of your year to year. If it's
down, find out why. Is it you? Or is it the business in
general. If it's the industry, work collectively to try to
turn things around. If it's you, make changes. You're
in the wrong business if you constantly panic over your
day to day sales.
Cheers and all the best. :)
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Please - if there's one re-occurring message on these
forums worth paying attention to it's:
Don't fret over day to day sales. Don't worry about
week to week sales. Don't even stew over your month
to month results....take note of your year to year. If it's
down, find out why. Is it you? Or is it the business in
general. If it's the industry, work collectively to try to
turn things around. If it's you, make changes. You're
in the wrong business if you constantly panic over your
day to day sales.
Cheers and all the best. :)
I expect swings, but this last month I have had HUGE gaps that I have never experienced in 7 years at SS. So I think it's worth mentioning, oh God of microstock.
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Yes, 50% down for a whole June comapred to May. Not normal. I am 3500+ port with regular uploading. This is not normal.
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I'm up. But I have a small port with 380 images. I upload every month and have not seen drops yet. Only ups. About $40 up average every month. But as I said my port might be to small and young for comparing. Only uploading for 10 months at SS.
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It's up! Wait it's down! No it's up...
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It's up! Wait it's down! No it's up...
Almost as if the sale that one person isn't getting is going to someone else....
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H'mm you could be on to something Sherlock ???
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I'm new at this -- really just got going in January. I have an admittedly not so great portfolio, but sales on SS were increasing nicely month after month until May when sales just almost stopped. Never really recovered. Very disheartening. After reading sales related posts in this forum I have to say I have never been involved in such a volatile business! I'm sticking with it and working on getting more salable content, but it is one wild business. Oddly, I had one month with IS with sales increasing quite a bit and after one month then that stopped almost entirely.
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The SS database now contains almost 27 million images, and added over 108,000 this week. What proportion of those images gets downloaded every day? Pretty low and decreasing. When I started only 4 years ago the database was around 4 million images, now they add more than 5 million every year. Many of the new ones now are from former iS exclusives with excellent portfolios that we haven't had to compete with previously on SS. The rate of increase in the database is faster than any individual contributor so our portion will always decrease. I think this is the cause of the variation some people are seeing and it will only get worse as the database gets larger. At the current rate of increase the database will have over 40 million images in less than 4 years - how will our sales be then? Will demand for images double in 4 years? Maybe, but I doubt it. SS currently is the sales leader, which encourages everyone to submit there and recommend it to others. This increases the size of the database - great for the agency and for buyers, not so good for individual contributors. Greater variability and declining sales for individual contributors is a statistical inevitability. Ride the wave while you can but don't be surprised when it crashes.
(Of course, contributors may drop out as revenue declines, eventually leading to an equilibrium, but we still have a way to go for that)
BTW, my sales have been steady with a slight increase over the past year, although there are huge daily swings in numbers of DLs and particularly ODDs. I try to only look at monthly averages and long-term trends - anything else is statistical noise. If you're seeing large long-term decreases then my guess is that you may have had a niche all to yourself that now has been found (or copied) by others.
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The SS database now contains almost 27 million images, and added over 108,000 this week. What proportion of those images gets downloaded every day? Pretty low and decreasing. When I started only 4 years ago the database was around 4 million images, now they add more than 5 million every year. Many of the new ones now are from former iS exclusives with excellent portfolios that we haven't had to compete with previously on SS. The rate of increase in the database is faster than any individual contributor so our portion will always decrease. I think this is the cause of the variation some people are seeing and it will only get worse as the database gets larger. At the current rate of increase the database will have over 40 million images in less than 4 years - how will our sales be then? Will demand for images double in 4 years? Maybe, but I doubt it. SS currently is the sales leader, which encourages everyone to submit there and recommend it to others. This increases the size of the database - great for the agency and for buyers, not so good for individual contributors. Greater variability and declining sales for individual contributors is a statistical inevitability. Ride the wave while you can but don't be surprised when it crashes.
(Of course, contributors may drop out as revenue declines, eventually leading to an equilibrium, but we still have a way to go for that)
BTW, my sales have been steady with a slight increase over the past year, although there are huge daily swings in numbers of DLs and particularly ODDs. I try to only look at monthly averages and long-term trends - anything else is statistical noise. If you're seeing large long-term decreases then my guess is that you may have had a niche all to yourself that now has been found (or copied) by others.
I think all of your supposition is correct. Additionally, think of the strain added to displaying those millions of images in a search. My theory is that no ONE Server (other than NSA) can handle that many images. Perhaps SS has images scattered over several servers. How would they be prioritized? Could that not be a consideration for the "ebb and flow?"
Mine are certainly up and down, especially the OD, SOD and EL images.
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I love it when someone sticks a minus on a post that says they are doing well. As if thats going to make a difference.
OP asks if we see the same sales drop, I dont, I keep plodding on, and my sales are quite steady, I have poor days, but other days to make up for it.
When I say I am going to make BME, its not by 1000 dollar, its peanuts, but BME.
It seems people are only allowed to post their doom and gloom, tough luck. I have a new portfolio and very diverse, best chance to have steady sales.
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The SS database now contains almost 27 million images, and added over 108,000 this week. What proportion of those images gets downloaded every day? Pretty low and decreasing. When I started only 4 years ago the database was around 4 million images, now they add more than 5 million every year. Many of the new ones now are from former iS exclusives with excellent portfolios that we haven't had to compete with previously on SS. The rate of increase in the database is faster than any individual contributor so our portion will always decrease. I think this is the cause of the variation some people are seeing and it will only get worse as the database gets larger. At the current rate of increase the database will have over 40 million images in less than 4 years - how will our sales be then? Will demand for images double in 4 years? Maybe, but I doubt it. SS currently is the sales leader, which encourages everyone to submit there and recommend it to others. This increases the size of the database - great for the agency and for buyers, not so good for individual contributors. Greater variability and declining sales for individual contributors is a statistical inevitability. Ride the wave while you can but don't be surprised when it crashes.
(Of course, contributors may drop out as revenue declines, eventually leading to an equilibrium, but we still have a way to go for that)
BTW, my sales have been steady with a slight increase over the past year, although there are huge daily swings in numbers of DLs and particularly ODDs. I try to only look at monthly averages and long-term trends - anything else is statistical noise. If you're seeing large long-term decreases then my guess is that you may have had a niche all to yourself that now has been found (or copied) by others.
Now go post this on the SS forums and see what they have to say.
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Ride the wave while you can but don't be surprised when it crashes.
If you're seeing large long-term decreases then my guess is that you may have had a niche all to yourself that now has been found (or copied) by others.
that's exactly what I'm doing, I'm like waiting for that particular moment.. meanwhile maintaining my ratio, making my port a bit bigger and investing in "myself" in my free time (learning new skills) so I can abandon the ship safely when it sinks, well, at least that's the idea..
that's the curse of having many files in the first page ><
I'm not only being copied, I'm being traced, literally! they're using my (and other illustrators) work as reference ;D and they release these huge vector sets that would take forever if you were designing it from scratch.
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Normal sales for me.
Yep^^
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The SS database now contains almost 27 million images, and added over 108,000 this week. What proportion of those images gets downloaded every day? Pretty low and decreasing. When I started only 4 years ago the database was around 4 million images, now they add more than 5 million every year. Many of the new ones now are from former iS exclusives with excellent portfolios that we haven't had to compete with previously on SS. The rate of increase in the database is faster than any individual contributor so our portion will always decrease. I think this is the cause of the variation some people are seeing and it will only get worse as the database gets larger. At the current rate of increase the database will have over 40 million images in less than 4 years - how will our sales be then? Will demand for images double in 4 years? Maybe, but I doubt it. SS currently is the sales leader, which encourages everyone to submit there and recommend it to others. This increases the size of the database - great for the agency and for buyers, not so good for individual contributors. Greater variability and declining sales for individual contributors is a statistical inevitability. Ride the wave while you can but don't be surprised when it crashes.
(Of course, contributors may drop out as revenue declines, eventually leading to an equilibrium, but we still have a way to go for that)
BTW, my sales have been steady with a slight increase over the past year, although there are huge daily swings in numbers of DLs and particularly ODDs. I try to only look at monthly averages and long-term trends - anything else is statistical noise. If you're seeing large long-term decreases then my guess is that you may have had a niche all to yourself that now has been found (or copied) by others.
Now go post this on the SS forums and see what they have to say.
Why would I care what they have to say? If they want to see other opinions they can come here.
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I'll say the same thing there, and here, and with my name attached to it. No anonymity needed.
My sales haven't dropped. They've increased from month to month and year to year. I have no idea why some have sales going down while others have sales going up. It's definitely not about Shutterstock trying to steer downloads to lowest tier contributors; I've read that accusation quite a bit. I'm on the highest tier, and so are a lot of others who have increasing sales.
I do get a lot more fluctuations, and it's become hard to have any kind of expectation for sales on a given day. Last year, I could have told you Monday would be good, Tuesday would be best and then it would start to slow on Friday, slowest on Saturday, then start to pick up again on Sunday. This year, I have no idea what's coming. I think that's because so many new images are being approved from the former iStockers. So while my sales are increasing, maybe they would have been even better without all those new files. Who knows? All I can do is keep plugging.
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As expected, (very nearly) all the people who were bleating about poor sales last week are doing cartwheels on their way to the bank this week, with one of 'em claiming a $900 day.
Codswallop I say.
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As expected, (very nearly) all the people who were bleating about poor sales last week are doing cartwheels on their way to the bank this week, with one of 'em claiming a $900 day.
Codswallop I say.
Mate you do have selective reading. Go back an read more carefully, the people reporting poor sales are still in the same boat.
I had to adjust my post. Mr Hip Hip Hooray is an exception.
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Had a bad drop in May but seems like this month is going to make up for it. Going along quite well (unlike most of my other sites, where I have been struggling since May).
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Now I know where all my sales are going right to CD! ;)
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Last month was a BME for me, but I understand what the OP is talking about. I've been there since 06 and understand fluctuations, but these weird gaps where I don't get a single sale for 24 hours, or nothing overnight from Asia/Europe, or entire weekdays without a single sale from US is different from normal ups and downs. there are several old timers reporting similar issues on SS forum.
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Last month was a BME for me, but I understand what the OP is talking about. I've been there since 06 and understand fluctuations, but these weird gaps where I don't get a single sale for 24 hours, or nothing overnight from Asia/Europe, or entire weekdays without a single sale from US is different from normal ups and downs. there are several old timers reporting similar issues on SS forum.
My actual numbers are down a bit this month but plenty of non sub sales have kept the earnings up.
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I have only 1 SOD so far this month, luckily for $105. Had lots more last month. On demand are lagging behind last month as well. Hopefully the second half of June will make up for it.
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I have only 1 SOD so far this month, luckily for $105. Had lots more last month. On demand are lagging behind last month as well. Hopefully the second half of June will make up for it.
Amen brother.
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As expected, (very nearly) all the people who were bleating about poor sales last week are doing cartwheels on their way to the bank this week, with one of 'em claiming a $900 day.
Codswallop I say.
Mate you do have selective reading. Go back an read more carefully, the people reporting poor sales are still in the same boat.
I had to adjust my post. Mr Hip Hip Hooray is an exception.
That person said he would post a screenshot, but I havent seen it yet. I am not sure if I want to take it for granted. 900 dollars on they day seems a bit over the top, especially when its reported when the day wasnt even over yet. The contrast is so big, from day to day.
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As expected, (very nearly) all the people who were bleating about poor sales last week are doing cartwheels on their way to the bank this week, with one of 'em claiming a $900 day.
Codswallop I say.
Mate you do have selective reading. Go back an read more carefully, the people reporting poor sales are still in the same boat.
I had to adjust my post. Mr Hip Hip Hooray is an exception.
That person said he would post a screenshot, but I havent seen it yet. I am not sure if I want to take it for granted. 900 dollars on they day seems a bit over the top, especially when its reported when the day wasnt even over yet. The contrast is so big, from day to day.
Given who it was making that claim I would take that post with a huge pinch of salt.
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As expected, (very nearly) all the people who were bleating about poor sales last week are doing cartwheels on their way to the bank this week, with one of 'em claiming a $900 day.
Codswallop I say.
Mate you do have selective reading. Go back an read more carefully, the people reporting poor sales are still in the same boat.
I had to adjust my post. Mr Hip Hip Hooray is an exception.
That person said he would post a screenshot, but I havent seen it yet. I am not sure if I want to take it for granted. 900 dollars on they day seems a bit over the top, especially when its reported when the day wasnt even over yet. The contrast is so big, from day to day.
Given who it was making that claim I would take that post with a huge pinch of salt.
Are you saying we shouldn't believe every word of Christian Lagerek :)
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He is not the only one.
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Wait a minute. A couple of weeks ago he said he was leaving SS because of poor sales? (this is a regular event, almost monthly now)
Claims on Alamy that he did leave there. Self reported that he was quitting almost all Microstock RF sites because of low sales. Now things are wonderful again? :o
Yes, huge credibility gap. But no lack of drama and humor.
As expected, (very nearly) all the people who were bleating about poor sales last week are doing cartwheels on their way to the bank this week, with one of 'em claiming a $900 day.
Codswallop I say.
Mate you do have selective reading. Go back an read more carefully, the people reporting poor sales are still in the same boat.
I had to adjust my post. Mr Hip Hip Hooray is an exception.
That person said he would post a screenshot, but I havent seen it yet. I am not sure if I want to take it for granted. 900 dollars on they day seems a bit over the top, especially when its reported when the day wasnt even over yet. The contrast is so big, from day to day.
Given who it was making that claim I would take that post with a huge pinch of salt.
Are you saying we shouldn't believe every word of Christian Lagerek :)
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He has a decent port but I have often wondered about the bipolar swings. So yes I assumed it was a given.
As for low sales I could post examples of ports that are down an should not be and ports that are up that are filled with so so content. We in micro have a long standing tendency to assign blame to the artist when they are having troubles with their ports. If we want the sites to treat us with respect that should change.
There are some very good vectors artist and photographers who have very very low sales, much lower in fact than ports with mediocre LCV content and few images. That should alarm us and that fact that it often does not, makes it that much easier for the sites to focus on profit without upholding their end of the contract. We pay them 70%+ to sell our files and for that amount of cut they should make sure their site is functioning on all pistons and that they offer a level playing field to all.
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They should, but they dont, all they care about is their own $$$ and if that goes up, happy days, doesnt matter who's port is responsible for those $$$. I do not understand why my mediocre portfolio is out performing HCV portfolios with 5 times more images. But if that is a result of the search, then there is nothing I can do about it, other then pull my images. Which nobody is asking for, just saying the agencies only care about their bottom line, not ours.
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They should, but they dont, all they care about is their own $$$ and if that goes up, happy days, doesnt matter who's port is responsible for those $$$. I do not understand why my mediocre portfolio is out performing HCV portfolios with 5 times more images. But if that is a result of the search, then there is nothing I can do about it, other then pull my images. Which nobody is asking for, just saying the agencies only care about their bottom line, not ours.
You have the ability to be more objective than some Ron. If we could all do this, the sites would have more pressure to take care of our interests.
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Thank you. I havent been posting on the SS forum lately because it was getting a bit ugly. For a long time I have heard that I was going to end up in a long sleeve jacket every time I posted my findings, asking questions using my portfolio as measure, and every time I got hammered over trying to find out what is going on with our portfolios. I had no clue, I was a newbie, everything had been said a thousand times, I should have been around in 2005, blah blah blah. Until they finally convinced me that its sales go down, sales go up. And now look at the SS forum, one thread after the other is opened, and all I see is stuff being mentioned I was talking about six, nine months ago. Its fine though, I have given up trying to figure it out, and quite frankly I am happy with that. I cant change it. Now its up to them to follow their own advice they have given me all this time.
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Thank you. I havent been posting on the SS forum lately because it was getting a bit ugly. For a long time I have heard that I was going to end up in a long sleeve jacket every time I posted my findings, asking questions using my portfolio as measure, and every time I got hammered over trying to find out what is going on with our portfolios. I had no clue, I was a newbie, everything had been said a thousand times, I should have been around in 2005, blah blah blah. Until they finally convinced me that its sales go down, sales go up. And now look at the SS forum, one thread after the other is opened, and all I see is stuff being mentioned I was talking about six, nine months ago. Its fine though, I have given up trying to figure it out, and quite frankly I am happy with that. I cant change it. Now its up to them to follow their own advice they have given me all this time.
Consider the source Ron, just a few limited egos and a couple of Chihuahua's showing fangs to scare away perceived threats to attention/ competition. Most serious submitters also quit posting there for some of the same reasons, nativity and weakness is easier to manipulate.
In general, you will find the people on these boards more knowledgeable and reasonable.
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Thank you. I havent been posting on the SS forum lately because it was getting a bit ugly. For a long time I have heard that I was going to end up in a long sleeve jacket every time I posted my findings, asking questions using my portfolio as measure, and every time I got hammered over trying to find out what is going on with our portfolios. I had no clue, I was a newbie, everything had been said a thousand times, I should have been around in 2005, blah blah blah. Until they finally convinced me that its sales go down, sales go up. And now look at the SS forum, one thread after the other is opened, and all I see is stuff being mentioned I was talking about six, nine months ago. Its fine though, I have given up trying to figure it out, and quite frankly I am happy with that. I cant change it. Now its up to them to follow their own advice they have given me all this time.
Consider the source Ron, just a few limited egos and a couple of Chihuahua's showing fangs to scare away perceived threats to attention/ competition. Most serious submitters also quit posting there for some of the same reasons, nativity and weakness is easier to manipulate.
In general, you will find the people on these boards more knowledgeable and reasonable.
I don't see how that's true. Most of the people who post here do it anonymously. You don't even get to see their work to see if they know what they're talking about.
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Different perspectives Rob
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Who are we to judge Commercial Value - the Market does that
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Who are we to judge Commercial Value - the Market does that
That has been my thought all along. I guess crapstock, as mine is considered to be, has potential if the market is there. I have been told on SS by someone that my portfolio is good for laughs or laughable or something in that stretch. I guess humor sells these days :)
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Who are we to judge Commercial Value - the Market does that
Yes indeed the market does that "IF" All of the images are available to purchase. If the site is not functioning for each and every port and some images are not available to purchase then the true merit of the image can not be achieved.
The above concept become relevant if your port has been suffering consistent bugs over a long period of time and you have often found your images to be invisible or unavailable to buyers.
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Yes all markets are imperfect. If the images are not available at all fair point. If the debate is about position in search algorithms then im not sure it can ever be fair or equal.
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Yes all markets are imperfect. If the images are not available at all fair point. If the debate is about position in search algorithms then im not sure it can ever be fair or equal.
It can't be, unless it is a search that only turns up a single page of results. Beyond that, luck plays a huge role however hard sites try to give precedence to the best material.
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Updating..
I'm 99% positive that it was SS (although I'm not sure whether it was a bug or a regular images shuffle by the staff..) anyway my most popular images are "somehow" back to their old position, sales are are heading toward my normal too..
no complaints, I guess that's the nature of our business, sometime we eat, sometime we're meat ^^
thank you all.
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Hi guys,
is anyone else facing a dramatic drop in sales?
last week things were normal, this week however, SS sales went down almost -40% (I don't think it's June!)
any idea ??? ?
Thanks..
No
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I have never found SS good for sales compared to IS, even as unexclusive. Since getting over a hundred files recently added sales have been poor. Not good.
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They should, but they dont, all they care about is their own $$$ and if that goes up, happy days, doesnt matter who's port is responsible for those $$$. I do not understand why my mediocre portfolio is out performing HCV portfolios with 5 times more images. But if that is a result of the search, then there is nothing I can do about it, other then pull my images. Which nobody is asking for, just saying the agencies only care about their bottom line, not ours.
This is hardly news...
And we have not even scratched the surface yet.
1 million images, 5 million images, 20 million images... you do the math.
The state of the industry now is all about the agencies and their bottom line.
I am willing to bet you all that as more and more images get uncontrollably added to all of the sites, all of our sales will diminish over time. The odds are not in our favor at all, and the agencies know this.
Going forward into the future it's a sad state of affairs for individual photographers I am afraid to say.
We can have all the hissy fits we want but it is very close to check mate in this industry from an individual contributors point of view, and the agencies really don't care just as long as they make another "billion", and if they drop the royalties to make that extra "billion", they will.