MicrostockGroup
Microstock Photography Forum - General => Site Related => Topic started by: PaulieWalnuts on November 30, 2020, 20:42
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MSG used to be pretty active. Now there's a handful or less of new posts or replies daily.
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MSG used to be pretty active. Now there's a handful or less of new posts or replies daily.
Just not a lot to say about anything stock related. At least not here.
Besides… turkey-day weekend, holiday season, post-election exhaustion, stay-at-home-hunkered-down boredom, etc etc etc
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I'm not a very active member here, but I've been socially distancing from the forum this year. :D
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I'm not sure theres much left to say........
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I read the top posts every day, but I'm not a very chatty person, certainly not when wearing a face mask ...
Also, we're about to end the second lockdown here in Belgium. And my experience up till now is that lockdowns SEEM to give us plenty extra private time, but in reality, it kills all creativity. I've been following the news (on Covid) every day, cleaning up, editing for clients, buying Christmas presents etc etc, but I have NOT touched my camera once during the lockdown periods. Weird but true.
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I check in once or twice a day, but don't post unless there's something of note going on.
Stock agencies are in a pretty sad state at the moment. The archive of posts here is very useful when I come across an agency I've not heard of and can search here to see if it's been discussed before.
Many smaller agencies appear to be barely hanging on (and they would once have reps participating in discussions here) and have gone quiet.
We are now in-between "car crash" posts - some awful action by an agency - so things are not very active :)
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MSG used to be pretty active. Now there's a handful or less of new posts or replies daily.
I think the interest in Microstock itself has been covered with a number of wet blankets. There's not much to look forward to and from what once was, they have cut at our income and removed most incentives to work harder. People are losing interest and there isn't much good news to share.
Right, you would think with the lock down, we'd have more people participating?
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Shutterstock's changes sucked the life out of my interest in doing new work for micro. Working just as hard for a lot less money made little sense to me. I just sold my camera and will get rid of the rest of my gear eventually. Should I decide to get back into it someday, I will just buy a decent cellphone.
I can't travel anymore or do events, which was my only other passion for photography. I feel lucky that I discovered writing to explore my creative side. I still check in here to see if there is anything new in the industry, but I check in less and less as time goes by.
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Shutterstock killed my motivation...But i still read messages here...sometimes.
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My photography career has wound down. I stick around here because I do still sell at Adobe, so check in to see what’s going on there.
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I check on this place several times a week, but I think a lot of the communication has moved into various facebook groups. So it is less centralised.
But in times of crisis, people still come here.
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I just looked at the chart on the right. The "Top Tier - Big 4" is down to 3… with the lowest of those being DT at 3.1.
Looks like the whole game is now between AS and SS. For those of us who took ourselves out of SS, the pickings left behind are pathetically slim.
Or, as somebody else said, not much motivation.
EDITED TO ADD (2 days later): the numbers on the chart have shifted. There now are an actual "Big 4" and DT has dropped to #6. This makes more sense. I'm actually glad to see that change.
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I think before the fall of SS when it became a literal circus, I was putting a bit too much energy in making clip art. I think it was the literal kick in the bootee that I needed to put more effort in other places. Like going back to working on books for people for one thing. In fact I got a contact from a previous author recently for yet another book project. But its now a bit delayed till after New Years. But that's common with her. No problems. I can accommodate. In the mean time I will improve my online ports and other things I have been meaning to do. :)
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All of the reasons mentioned above. Shutterstock's holdup on contributor earnings, global pandemic, and a very quiet last months in terms of development with other agencies made many contributors apathic or just focusing on their own work. Feels like we are witnessing the silent death of a comatose patient. Many discussions are probably scattered around on social media (which I don't use that frequently) or discussion boards in the native language of other contribution clusters, e.g. Russian.
The upcoming reset at Shutterstock in January will give us some juice again, but not in a good way, and probably nothing that hasn't been said already.
I wonder what became of the Stock Coalition. Many joined, a lot more didn't. If they are serious about what they are doing, January will give them a good momentum again to gain some traction. Their protest has my sympathy, but until now, it seems they didn't realize the impact they were hoping for.
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I thought that one of the main reasons the Stock Coalition was formed was to help stop the race to the bottom with contributor royalties. They have been unable to negotiate better commissions for coalition members. Maybe because there just aren’t enough members yet. And it is very likely all the heavy hitters have negotiated deals privately, I would assume with nondisclosures. So they don’t need a coalition, therefore may not have joined. The coalition has made good strides in other areas, but bottom line the issue is money. I would be pleasantly surprised if they were able to break through the agencies’ greed.
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I imagine that people are discouraged. It is not worth much effort in the microstock to earn so little that it is not enough for much.
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Shutterstock killed my motivation...But i still read messages here...sometimes.
Same here
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I have deleted my portfolio at all microstock agencies except AdobeStock.
There is no reason to work hard for microstock - you just don't get paid for hard work there.
I will do microstock just for fun in the future.
So i am more at creative positioned sites than at business positioned sites like MSG.
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I just looked at the chart on the right. The "Top Tier - Big 4" is down to 3… with the lowest of those being DT at 3.1.
Looks like the whole game is now between AS and SS. For those of us who took ourselves out of SS, the pickings left behind are pathetically slim.
Or, as somebody else said, not much motivation.
I think the voting, partly it's the start of a new month and partly apathy. Less people come here, less people care, less are interested in a dying personal business model.
Shutterstock's changes sucked the life out of my interest in doing new work for micro.
I think that could be a good reflection of many individuals viewpoint right now. Also I don't see anything getting better. There isn't going to be, any back to the way it was, ever.
One by one, every agency has taken away money as a reward and incentives to produce more product. Now the last one joined the steady sinking.
So back to the OP, what's to discuss? The constant pain and misery that we've been denying for pretty much 8 years?
I'm watching this train wreck and waiting for the end of the crunching, shrill metal scraping, the explosion, the last falling bits of debris. And when the smoke clears, what will be left? I'll say, I never depended on this, I viewed it as something like (LIKE) a MLM where people are drawn in with promises, paid just enough commission to make things interesting and then after they have a garage full of product and have invested time and money, they find out, it's more promise and hope than anything real. I pretty much treated this as a hobby from the start, in which case, I'm not as disillusioned or disappointed as many others.
If someone reading this hasn't lost hope, with how we've all been tricked, used for what we create, and dumped... just wait until January 1st. The fireworks won't be for fun, celebration and joy.
For me: 29 days, 1 hours - I made my Editorial Cartoon for that event. Just waiting for the time to be closer.
Yes I left my work on SS, they are the only place that sells most of what I produce. Sure thing, I'm concentrating on new images for Adobe.
(oh a small ray of hope, peeking through the dark foreboding storm-front of Microstock Doom. Adobe will start taking Editorial News.) :)
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I read I leave.
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I read I leave.
Therefore you are.
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Shutterstock & COVID-19 sucked the life out of the industry. It's not easy to find motivation when all we want is for the world to get back to normal again.
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I read I leave.
Therefore you are.
^^ The best lines of this thread. ^^
Thank you. We all needed a chuckle right about now.
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I just looked at the chart on the right. The "Top Tier - Big 4" is down to 3… with the lowest of those being DT at 3.1.
Looks like the whole game is now between AS and SS. For those of us who took ourselves out of SS, the pickings left behind are pathetically slim.
Or, as somebody else said, not much motivation.
EDITED TO ADD (2 days later): the numbers on the chart have shifted. There now are an actual "Big 4" and DT has dropped to #6. This makes more sense. I'm actually glad to see that change.
Maybe people reading the thread decided to vote? 8) But honestly, and Leaf is the only one who can answer how it works, until an agency gets 50 votes, it shows nothing. I don't know how long the time period is for a vote sticking, before it rolls off.
I had a suggestion, which I know would make some people unhappy, but what if, every month on the 10th for example, forum access was dependent on going to the poll, at least just a link that says you looked. Not to force people to vote, but to at get them there, to remind them they can take the survey.
I don't take the survey every month. My numbers would just bring the averages down.
But after you mentioned it, I went and added my November totals. iStock I just put October in Nov. as that's when they report it.
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I think once the "old" ranters and "troublemakers" either got banned or left any forum will slowly die out. They sort of keep the place alive. Some of the old ranters here was BIG contributors as well. As an example just look at the DPR forum!
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As others have said - the drops at pretty much all the agencies have killed most of my motivation, SS was just the last straw after a long string of kicks to delicate parts and gradually decreasing sales.
Recently as part of another effort I have been going through my old records all the way past my microstock days. From about 2007 to 2013 or so there were interesting little notes about BME and BDE and other milestones. I had BDEs that rival entire months this year. I check every day or few days when I am online, but usually I don't have much to add to any threads, so I don't. I think some of the rise and fall of microstock was unavoidable simply based on the numbers, but it could have been a whole lot better with a few decent agencies shaping the overall business instead of what happened.
I turned my SS port back on to get to a payout for December and the rest of my $ and to see how things were there - pretty sad - but it is turning off before the new year unless SS makes some changes.
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I just looked at the chart on the right. The "Top Tier - Big 4" is down to 3… with the lowest of those being DT at 3.1.
Looks like the whole game is now between AS and SS. For those of us who took ourselves out of SS, the pickings left behind are pathetically slim.
Or, as somebody else said, not much motivation.
EDITED TO ADD (2 days later): the numbers on the chart have shifted. There now are an actual "Big 4" and DT has dropped to #6. This makes more sense. I'm actually glad to see that change.
Maybe people reading the thread decided to vote? 8) But honestly, and Leaf is the only one who can answer how it works, until an agency gets 50 votes, it shows nothing. I don't know how long the time period is for a vote sticking, before it rolls off.
I didn't realise it was as many as 50.
Anyway, when I saw that remark about the Big 4 and saw iS was off it, I realised I hadn't polled, so I put mine in, and the next time I looked, the iS stats (both!) appeared. That could have been pure coincidence, I couldn't possibly say. But would me voting bring up both iS indie and iS exclusive? Maybe - they're linked in some way; I don't poll for Alamy because when I do that, my iS score goes into indie. A friend pointed out he's exclusive for stills on iS, and doesn't submit video to iS, but does submit video to SS, P5 but if he puts his video income there, his iS stills exclusive income goes into iS indie on the poll.
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I just looked at the chart on the right. The "Top Tier - Big 4" is down to 3… with the lowest of those being DT at 3.1.
Looks like the whole game is now between AS and SS. For those of us who took ourselves out of SS, the pickings left behind are pathetically slim.
Or, as somebody else said, not much motivation.
EDITED TO ADD (2 days later): the numbers on the chart have shifted. There now are an actual "Big 4" and DT has dropped to #6. This makes more sense. I'm actually glad to see that change.
Maybe people reading the thread decided to vote? 8) But honestly, and Leaf is the only one who can answer how it works, until an agency gets 50 votes, it shows nothing. I don't know how long the time period is for a vote sticking, before it rolls off.
I didn't realise it was as many as 50.
Anyway, when I saw that remark about the Big 4 and saw iS was off it, I realised I hadn't polled, so I put mine in, and the next time I looked, the iS stats (both!) appeared. That could have been pure coincidence, I couldn't possibly say. But would me voting bring up both iS indie and iS exclusive? Maybe - they're linked in some way; I don't poll for Alamy because when I do that, my iS score goes into indie. A friend pointed out he's exclusive for stills on iS, and doesn't submit video to iS, but does submit video to SS, P5 but if he puts his video income there, his iS stills exclusive income goes into iS indie on the poll.
Yes from what I've seen, you have both parts right. If you vote for only iStock, you go into exclusive, if you vote for any other, you go into "iStock" and a vote for either counts for the total of the 50. Might as well add, in case someone new is reading. The rough way to read the number is that the average is 5 times what we see. So 11.1 would be $55.50
With that, there are some pretty successful people coming here and voting to make the top two over $200 a month. I know many people who aren't making that. The number is an average, not what to expect. ;)
If I was making $15 a month on DT, I'd be very happy. As it is, I make about $15 a year.
Last note: If you hover the mouse pointer over an agency that isn't displaying a value, you will see the number of votes and the value number. They are ranked by value, not votes, in order of average earnings from the people who did vote. Eight people voted for self hosted which is at 21.3 = higher than all the showing sites, except SS and AS.
When 123RF gets 3 more votes, it will possibly, go up, just above DT.
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MSG used to be pretty active. Now there's a handful or less of new posts or replies daily.
Right, you would think with the lock down, we'd have more people participating?
The Adobe discord is popping. Daily stuff about challenges, news, updates ... whathaveyou.
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There is no motivation to earn a few pennies, but very few, if they were many at least, another would be the story. Nothing to do here!
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Long time, no see. :)
Glad to see some old members still around. I hope you are all fine in these tough days.
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Long time, no see. :)
Glad to see some old members still around. I hope you are all fine in these tough days.
Wow, you haven’t been here in forever! Glad to see you. Still shooting? I came across your name the other day and wondered how you were.
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I think once the "old" ranters and "troublemakers" either got banned or left any forum will slowly die out. They sort of keep the place alive. Some of the old ranters here was BIG contributors as well. As an example just look at the DPR forum!
I laughed and then I realized I may be one of these people :)
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The agencies might have killed the motivation but not the characters we used to have here. They might have been instigators and sometimes caused quarrels and so on but as I said they kept it alive!
What do we have now? negativities and bitterness in almost every thread and post. Most of these people are either banned or just left but I often bump into some of them in the the world of commissioned photography and in the rights-managed agencies ( not many left) but under different pseudos of course so they are still around but not here!
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First time I've looked here for months. I used to ba addicted to this forum. I think it just got too depressing. I miss the Lucky Oliver days :)
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First time I've looked here for months. I used to ba addicted to this forum. I think it just got too depressing. I miss the Lucky Oliver days :)
Wow old school. Haven't heard Lucky Oliver brought up in a long time. Back when micro was still like the USA Wild West and entrepreneurs had the opportunity to experiment with new concepts. Lucky Oliver was fun.
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First time I've looked here for months. I used to ba addicted to this forum. I think it just got too depressing. I miss the Lucky Oliver days :)
Wow old school. Haven't heard Lucky Oliver brought up in a long time. Back when micro was still like the USA Wild West and entrepreneurs had the opportunity to experiment with new concepts. Lucky Oliver was fun.
yep, fun with a great crew & forum; an attempt to build an active community - reminded me of the old compuserve days
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Photography as an art form is still in me, and I still do some
Micro… what?
Glad to see old names first time here in months
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First time I've looked here for months. I used to ba addicted to this forum. I think it just got too depressing. I miss the Lucky Oliver days :)
+ being 15 years younger plays a bit of a role too ;D