Author Topic: The attitude of a real capitalist (Read 12011 times)

epixx · « **on:** June 23, 2020, 17:38 »

Someone at Stock Submitter Coalition captured the tweet below before it was deleted. It's a chilling reminder of what we are. We are the slaves, and we should keep working no matter what the pay is. I'm no Communist, but this is the very reason why Karl Marx published Das Kapital back in 1867. We are back in the same situation as industrial workers of the 19th Century together with Uber drivers and other participants of the growing gig economy.

"You have the freedom to work, to create value, as much as you want. We have the obligation to pay you as much or as little as we want, if at all, whenever we want."

It's time to create a new United Artists, a new Magnum Photos, a new artist owned cooperation to sell our content. We are many enough to do that, but we would need to organise and establish a management group to lead such a project.

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #1 on:** June 23, 2020, 17:44 »

With the screenshot owner's permission, I tweeted about that. The entitled little twit of a billionaire really told us to take our content & go

Tosser!

https://twitter.com/joannsnover/status/1275559611655876608

Simon Brough · « **Reply #2 on:** June 23, 2020, 18:14 »

#TakeYourContentAndGo seems a very apt social tag for Shutterstock at this moment in time.

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #3 on:** June 23, 2020, 18:15 »

Just a heads up for people who are being open about #BoycottShutterstock, a number of us had our accounts disabled today. I had not changed my profile picture or text - there was nothing that broke the terms of service

If you need your income from Shutterstock, lay low and don't upload any more as your best way of supporting the boycott.

I was already planning to leave sales off indefinitely, but I can't tell if this is a temper tantrum on their part or a warning shot to others

Mantis · « **Reply #4 on:** June 23, 2020, 19:11 »

Quote from: epixx on June 23, 2020, 17:38

Someone at Stock Submitter Coalition captured the tweet below before it was deleted. It's a chilling reminder of what we are. We are the slaves, and we should keep working no matter what the pay is. I'm no Communist, but this is the very reason why Karl Marx published Das Kapital back in 1867. We are back in the same situation as industrial workers of the 19th Century together with Uber drivers and other participants of the growing gig economy.

"You have the freedom to work, to create value, as much as you want. We have the obligation to pay you as much or as little as we want, if at all, whenever we want."

It's time to create a new United Artists, a new Magnum Photos, a new artist owned cooperation to sell our content. We are many enough to do that, but we would need to organise and establish a management group to lead such a project.

Great. That's all Needed to know. Now going to delete assets one by one and close my account. What this does show, though, is that they knew this would get ugly and always knew contributors would remove content. They banked on that 300 million images keeping them afloat and this shows that they could care less what we do and, most importantly, it shows they never cared about contributors way back when....why do I say that? It's the same captain of the ship who is telling us, daring us, to remove content. Your wish is my command dickhead.

Can someone message me that script for removing images? Thanks in advance.

noodle · « **Reply #5 on:** June 23, 2020, 19:44 »

Contributers react to Mr Oringer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYiow8qNL8Y

Les · « **Reply #6 on:** June 23, 2020, 19:53 »

That is a sad state of affairs when the owner of the company takes such antagonistic stand against his partners.

Chichikov · « **Reply #7 on:** June 24, 2020, 01:58 »

In defense of Jon Oringer, unlike Pavlovsky who blocks all those with whom he disagrees, I must say that even if he answers crap, at least he answers ...

blue · « **Reply #8 on:** June 24, 2020, 02:01 »

Quote from: epixx on June 23, 2020, 17:38

Someone at Stock Submitter Coalition captured the tweet below before it was deleted. It's a chilling reminder of what we are. We are the slaves, and we should keep working no matter what the pay is. I'm no Communist, but this is the very reason why Karl Marx published Das Kapital back in 1867. We are back in the same situation as industrial workers of the 19th Century together with Uber drivers and other participants of the growing gig economy.

Please stop comparing contributors to slaves. We are free, slaves are not. And they do not get any pay at all.

Noedelhap · « **Reply #9 on:** June 24, 2020, 04:34 »

As I said in another thread: what a pompous ass for tweeting something like that. Compare this guy to someone like Bill Gates for example, Gates would never attack anyone like that on Twitter. Oringer sounds more like an agitated Trump, with his stuck-up, billionnaire attitude.

Justanotherphotographer · « **Reply #10 on:** June 24, 2020, 05:35 »

Honestly I think Jon has lost touch so much he doesn't understand his own business.

He used to, I remember interviews when he said things like (paraphrasing) "30% is the sweet spot and lets contributors make some money while we do too". True he was already being greedy at that rate, but that's human nature. At least there was some appreciation that we are shouldering some (really most) of the risk. Now he's paying us single digit percentages (probably, definitely a lot less than the 15% minimum advertised).

I'd be happier if he would admit to himself what his business is. Exploiting us to line his pockets. They've shifted all the risk to us. It took years to see a decent return on a shoot or hours put into illustrations, they haven't only scr*wed us going forward, but assured we will never see a return for thousands of hours put in already.

Oh, and his "we are all suffering" BS makes the least sense of all. We were paid per download, we were already sharing the pain before the additional attack from them.

There was no need for a January reset and fake percentages based on all downloads used. They could have come up with a rolling real world percentage structure workable for everyone.

I wonder if they are now just mining the company for as much as they can grab in the short term with the idea of selling the husk.

Justanotherphotographer · « **Reply #11 on:** June 24, 2020, 05:57 »

Quote from: Noedelhap on June 24, 2020, 04:34

As I said in another thread: what a pompous ass for tweeting something like that. Compare this guy to someone like Bill Gates for example, Gates would never attack anyone like that on Twitter. Oringer sounds more like an agitated Trump, with his stuck-up, billionnaire attitude.

I don't know, Bill was pretty cut throat too. Track down some of the footage from the hearings back when people gave s**t about antitrust. He was a smug little s**t back then too.

It's easy to be nice when most people treat you like a saint and you're already one of the richest people in the world.

Microstockphoto · « **Reply #12 on:** June 24, 2020, 05:59 »

wow, what a сunt

pics2 · « **Reply #13 on:** June 24, 2020, 06:31 »

Quote from: blue on June 24, 2020, 02:01

Quote from: epixx on June 23, 2020, 17:38
Someone at Stock Submitter Coalition captured the tweet below before it was deleted. It's a chilling reminder of what we are. We are the slaves, and we should keep working no matter what the pay is. I'm no Communist, but this is the very reason why Karl Marx published Das Kapital back in 1867. We are back in the same situation as industrial workers of the 19th Century together with Uber drivers and other participants of the growing gig economy.

Please stop comparing contributors to slaves. We are free, slaves are not. And they do not get any pay at all.

Slaves are given food and place to sleep, so they are paid. Slaves can go from point a (place to sleep) to point b (place to work), so they are free. We just have an illusion of freedom.

cathyslife · « **Reply #14 on:** June 24, 2020, 06:42 »

Quote from: pics2 on June 24, 2020, 06:31

Quote from: blue on June 24, 2020, 02:01
Quote from: epixx on June 23, 2020, 17:38
Someone at Stock Submitter Coalition captured the tweet below before it was deleted. It's a chilling reminder of what we are. We are the slaves, and we should keep working no matter what the pay is. I'm no Communist, but this is the very reason why Karl Marx published Das Kapital back in 1867. We are back in the same situation as industrial workers of the 19th Century together with Uber drivers and other participants of the growing gig economy.

Please stop comparing contributors to slaves. We are free, slaves are not. And they do not get any pay at all.
Slaves are given food and place to sleep, so they are paid. Slaves can go from point a (place to sleep) to point b (place to work), so they are free. We just have an illusion of freedom.

Stop already with the slave nonsense.

Microstockphoto · « **Reply #15 on:** June 24, 2020, 06:47 »

he's probably one of those guys that says #whitelivesmatter and missed the whole point about #blacklivesmatter

Justanotherphotographer · « **Reply #16 on:** June 24, 2020, 06:58 »

Please don't get sidetracked. There are different types of slavery and he was referring to Marx and communism, the idea that we as workers are (a type of) salve (not the same as chattel slavery) is not that crazy in that context and calling him a racist doesn't help.

There are of course a lot of people on Twitter and the like making some entirely inappropriate and counterproductive comparisons to BLM which don't help (and aren't what the OP is doing). But again, getting caught up in all that is just a distraction and only draws more attention to those people (some of whom I'm sure are racist AF) and away from the matter at hand.

EDIT: oops sorry, your replies were not to the OP but to someone else. I'll move along

trabuco · « **Reply #17 on:** June 24, 2020, 07:10 »

This is not about Capitalism. It's about to be a piece of s.

Hannafate · « **Reply #18 on:** June 24, 2020, 07:34 »

Adobe and Dreamstime will be happy to have content that Shutterstock doesn't.

PaulieWalnuts · « **Reply #19 on:** June 24, 2020, 07:47 »

It's funny that over the years I've made jokes about all of the wealthy executives sitting in an extravagant conference room enjoying expensive hors d'oeuvres and cocktails while talking about the next round of "good news" of how to screw us. Based on their actions we knew how they felt about us regardless of how many times they talked about contributor value. This is just proof. We're just expendable nuisances to them.

What's funny about his statement is he's saying to go somewhere else or sell your own work. What I think he's failing to consider is the other option. Not selling stock at all because it's becoming a waste of time. They've squeezed our earnings so low that Shuterstock, and stock in general, no longer matter to a growing number of people. Years ago when I was making thousands of dollars per month it would be hard to walk away. Today, I spent more on a dinner last night than I made in a month at Shutterstock. I could walk away from all stock sites today and not care at all. Already done with Shutterstock.

PaulieWalnuts · « **Reply #20 on:** June 24, 2020, 07:53 »

Quote from: Hannafate on June 24, 2020, 07:34

Adobe and Dreamstime will be happy to have content that Shutterstock doesn't.

This attitude is another part of the overall problem. One stock site either doesn't recently screw contributors, or makes a tiny positive change, and suddenly there's a push to flock there to support them. Guess what, when Istock/Getty screwed everyone, Shutterstock was the darling savior everyone praised and supported. How'd that work out?

There needs to be a mass exodus of contributors from the industry as a whole. As long as they have content to sell, they have all of the leverage.

Justanotherphotographer · « **Reply #21 on:** June 24, 2020, 08:21 »

The content has to follow the best deals for contributors. That will never be staying with one agency as yes, they will all try the same tricks as much as we let them get away with it.

Justanotherphotographer · « **Reply #22 on:** June 24, 2020, 08:30 »

Just noticed the “SSTK paid out $1B to creators” in the screen capture

Nice semantic trick he's pulling now they managed to rebrand themselves from being agents (which in any meaningful way is what they have always been).

I think he means artists have paid out many billions of dollars to Shutterstock for marketing their work for them and $1B to him personally. What an ingrate. Wish I had a twitter account to reply!

jjneff · « **Reply #23 on:** June 24, 2020, 09:28 »

I want to truly thank who took that screen shot! Just posted it on twitter and my LinkedIn!

CHDigitalMedia · « **Reply #24 on:** June 24, 2020, 09:29 »

A definition of slavery, as I see it is a term that fits this situation very well, whether you agree with it or not

A condition of having to work very hard without proper remuneration or appreciation

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Author Topic: The attitude of a real capitalist (Read 12011 times)

epixx

Jo Ann Snover

Simon Brough

Jo Ann Snover

Mantis

noodle

Les

Chichikov

blue

Noedelhap

Justanotherphotographer

Justanotherphotographer

Microstockphoto

pics2

cathyslife

Microstockphoto

Justanotherphotographer

trabuco

Hannafate

PaulieWalnuts

PaulieWalnuts

Justanotherphotographer

Justanotherphotographer

jjneff

CHDigitalMedia

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