I wonder what would have happened if instead of royalty cuts to boost revenue, SS raised their prices? This is so contrary to the ingrained and  pervasive "race to the bottom" that all agencies are currently doing. Maybe, just maybe it would have worked. They would make more money and contributors would make more money. Contributors would be motivated to produce more and better content. Would they be so bold as to even try? Sure, the royalty cuts boost revenue, but as we all know, long term that is a dead end. SS, be bold!

I think that a raise in image buyers prices could make them less competitive... buyers will choose to buy images in other agencies. In the other hand contributors reduction in sales incoming will also reduce image quality and move the concentration of contributors towards poor countries (by reducing the amount of contributors of those countries where earning 100 usd a month is ridiculous, aka rich countries).

Probably this SS move will specially reduce the new illustration quality, because those artists who still wants to keep upload illustrators will not take 2 or 3 days in a draw, they will just made fast simple draws in order to upload 5 or 6 fast images per day.

Sure, the royalty cuts boost revenue, but as we all know, long term that is a dead end. SS, be bold!

The only thing they care about is the next quarterly result, and they will be able to present a significant cost cut on their contributors and probably an increase in profit.

How it plays out on the long term is probably to be fixed by the next CEO.

If cutting our commissions is tolerated by us they will cut commissions, regardless of whether they also raise prices, whether they are doing brilliantly or going bankrupt.

It's not like shareholders are gonna be like "yeah we are doing as well as last year so we'll just chill out". They want to increase profits in every way possible. That is always going to include paying us the bare minimum they can get away with.

The only way to improve our commissions, or even maintain them is to demonstrate that cutting them will have a real material impact on their shareprice or ability to pay dividends. That is it.

There isn't any other consideration at all for them. Forget about them having morals or anything else. Companies aren't people.

Think about how unspeakably cruel it is to cut commissions by more than half on the first of January for people who do this full time and rely on it as their main source of income (people on the higher tiers). If a person did that they would be a sociopath.

I still would not trust them, even if the paid more.  They have been too lax with copyright protection and image security for me to want to be associated with them. 

Now, if another stock site buys them out, or there is some other large shift in ownership, I might consider it.

In a year or two.