That came from the true beggining of Istock, when it just was a plattform to swap images among designers. To get a growing database, for each image downladed they had to upload 5. The real mistake, however, was to begin with very low prices: In 2000's context, when RF images used to cost 300-500 at Corbis or Getty, a price of 10 dollars image would have been equally seen as a steal.   

So if FT offered the EXACT same royalty payments as Stocksy in the future, you would happily sign up and forget about past misdemeanours?

With zero hesitation, yes. I think that an effort to make significant changes compared to past ventures and to do it in a coop model that adds additional protections for contributors is a sure sign that the desire to do thing differently is genuine.

...You don't go to a restaurant where you don't enjoy the food, you don't go to a shop where you know the service is bad, the list goes on. Why should this be any different?...

Your analogy is wrong. The "food" at Stocksy isn't bad right now. It's good. So why wouldn't anyone want to go have a bite?

It's like saying that a hypothetical chef ran a bad restaurant years ago and now you won't go to his new restaurant even though he made lots of improvements in the new place and it gets very good reviews. You can't get over the past so you miss out on something good in the present.

...The proof is in the performance. At the moment things are going well and congratulations to them all, but that is no guarantee of future security or prosperity.

If you need a guarantee of future prosperity and a proven track record, then the list of companies you're willing to work with must be pretty small. Do you look into every founder's past and look for bad decisions? Do you know how many stock company founders had other failed businesses before hitting success with their current ventures? Do you judge them all based on their past companies?

Holding a grudge based purely on some bizarre feelings of being wronged in the past while a company founder makes huge efforts to improve on previous work is childish and amateurish.

I liked Stockxpert a whole lot more than Istock, but in the previous owners 2cd acts Stocksy looks a whole lot better than Stockfresh.

That's the difference. It doesn't matter what the previous company was all about. If you come out with another project and improve on what you were doing before, it can succeed. You just can't put up the exact same thing, not spend any money marketing it, and sit on it for 4 years.

Those are two very good companies to compare, though. Both were started by known people in the microstock world, both with reputations for achieving success for contributors with their previous ventures. I wasn't sure if name recognition alone would be enough to generate enough buzz. It turns out that it's not. If Stocksy were an iStock clone, it would have had as little success as Stockfresh.