Anyone remember, was that the end of standard return for an EL or something? Just reviewing my history.

Also surprised to see a steady drop in SS RPD from around the start of 2018 (until going off the cliff edge with this change of course). Wonder what this longer term trend was about?

Could be the promotion and introduction of their prepaid pricing programs that could have increased cheap downloads and decreased rpd. I am not sure when they were introduced but all products have their product life cycle. I am also not an expert on the duration of subscription plans for images as a product, but 2-3 years until it reached it's peak performance, could be a thing.

Further more, maybe because eventually these packages reach their peak, with a possibility to overtake, that Shutterstock decided to change the contributor rates. They would certainly do it before it affected them negatively than later, since they are the only ones that monitor both ends of the scale.

edit:typos