Is Symbiostock against agencies, or meant to compete with them?

Answer: Not initially. It was only meant to be a way for people to be independent sellers should the downtrend of "Free" continue.

I remember getting a mass-email from MSG. Two of its advertised subjects (I don't remember word-for-word)

1. SJLock Dropped from Istock.
2. Open Source way to Sell Direct (Referring to the now-named Symbiostock).

(referred to this thread: http://www.microstockgroup.com/symbiostock-development-area/selling-rf-images-is-really-not-that-hard-php-developers-wanted/)

...this project was born during difficult days, jolted to action because of the GG-Deal.

Shortly after its release:

http://blog.melchersystem.com/2013/05/08/crowd-managed-photo-agency/

You may notice Symbiostock has the ability to generate referral links. This idea was inspired long before I laid out the idea for "Symbiostock". Believe it or not, those referral links were made for Istock exclusives primarily. I had intended to release that feature publicly on Istock. But some factors got in the way (IS Forums) when I started that process and it never happened.

Now people use it for things like Alamy, Stocksky, etc. I say, Awesome! How do you feel about that? Please say.

This is a community run project, so everyone will set the overtone for what Symbiostock is. Not just me. I'm just saying what I had in mind when I started.

I think Symbiostock will be much healthier just being the combination of many hard working people doing what they love. Agencies are really not a big part of the Symbiostock picture. Why make it that way?

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Some nice developments that show things are headed in a productive direction:

This thread here shows Symbiostock at its best, doing exactly what it was made for:

http://www.microstockgroup.com/symbiostock-general/unveiling-my-new-%28unfinished%29-sys-website/msg331551/?topicseen#new

Yet another well timed thread, shows how features were meant to be added to Symbiostock:

http://www.microstockgroup.com/symbiostock-development-area/new-plugin-syxtra-symbiostock-extra-features-information/msg331557/?topicseen#new


If there is any other questions, please ask them below. I'm sure most people can answer them besides myself as well.