The whole Istock fiasco happened when I was just trying to get accepted. Not a good way to start this business ><

But anyway, leaving aside the Google problem, I�m interested if it�s still worth it to get accepted there. I know they�re not what they used to be, but how much did the earnings actually drop? People say their sales decreased dramatically, but I don�t know what to believe. They dropped to 0 or does it still qualify at least as a middle tier website? Or at least as a low earner?

If the earnings, as low as they are, would surpass let's say Envato, I'm thinking it would still be worth submitting to them.

Please keep your answers on topic. I know everyone is annoyed about this website, but I read all your opinions in other threads. I�m only interested in what I asked.

As you can see from the chart on the right, they still second of the top tier on average for indies, though falling rapidly.
Probably worth it, if you can live with their shenanigans.- and not having a clue about what they'll throw at us next. 

Income has dropped for most long time contributors on iStock by 30%-40% or more. For some that drop has happened quickly in a matter of just a few months. For others the fall has happened more gradually over a long period of a year or more, but the net drop is roughly the same for everyone. Nearly 6 months has gone by now since, when on September 1, 2012, iStock basically pressed the self destruct button by creating a vast number of site issues. 6 months later, they have now finally fixed most of the programming problems they created 6 months ago. That includes the zoom tool, lightboxes, best match, file description edits previously not updating correctly, and they finally reversed the prices to showing credits again instead of cash prices by default. The views still aren't working correctly though and the site is probably the slowest microstock site there is, but those aren't probably the biggest deal breakers. The main problem is downloads and incomes still continue to fall from a lack of buying. So this decline can no longer be blamed on site problems, which previously was the red herring everyone thought was the cause of the rapidly declining sales. It is obvious now though that many of the buyers have simply packed up and left and are not coming back. As an 11th hour last ditch effort to try and turn things around they have hired consultants and have started doing buyer and contributor surveys, but it is all a bit too little and too late. For many long time contributors it is viewed as a sinking ship at this point, but it still is better than many of the smaller ships as the poll results show. So until it sinks completely many contributors will probably still hang in there. Hopefully there is something bigger and better that will eventually replace iStock, but still time will tell on that. To answer your question though, no, I would say it isn't worth it as a new contributor joining now. Views and downloads on newly uploaded content is very low for everyone across the board, especially for non exclusive contributors. So the people still earning from iStock are making some dosh only because of older content that is still selling a bit. Good luck.   

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It's true what was said above about new files. They're getting few if any views because there's something wrong with the way views are counted, and because best match is linked to views (as well as other factors), new files are tending to sink, even if downloaded a couple of times.
So @OP you might consider the middle sellers on the right column as equally likely to perform for you, unless things improve a lot at iS.
Bear in mind that although iS is falling rapidly, even the much praised SS has fallen from 100 to 80.9 (not as much as iS has fallen for indies).

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Stay away from istockphoto, they will only abuse you.
You will get frustrated and angry and you cannot imagine in how many ways they will cheat you.
And when they have cheated you, they will still be arrogant.
Also... sales are declining, and from being a solid provider ( for exclusives), they cannot provide anymore.

For non exclusives its only a onesided abusive relationship.
I have deleted my images on istock, and have seen my sales rise at the other agencies.

Yes - on balance. It is extra hassle, but if you use Deep Meta uploading can be made easier. Unless you are against IS on ethical grounds, it makes little business sense to discount them without trying.

Sales are slow to very slow but I've noticed that ALL my images are being transferred to Thinkstock.  Those sales are reported only once a month.  Haven't seen anything for this month.

I'll stop short of saying YES to the question.  I will, however, not delete what is already there.

In my case iStock(2390) is better (believe or not) than SS (2893)

Why 'believe it or not'? iStock still remains better for many, hence the number of exclusives who remain there, despite the problems. There is a core of iStock haters here who give the impresssion that nothing good happens there, which is far from the truth.

Here's a quote from DavidGoh ( who I think may be a poster here)in the iStock Illustration forums...

Hello people! I recently became exclusive illustrator, and already on my first day I've had my BDE!

Would be interested to know if anybody else is seeing this sort of pattern.

Here are my last 20 sales
1 - 2005
2 - 2006
1 - 2007
4 - 2008
4 - 2009
1 - 2010
2 - 2011
3 - 2012
2 - 2013

I was so surprised by the stats for my last 20 that I went on to the second page to give a better sample size (otherwise I would only have had one sale from the last four years).

4     2004
14   2005
4     2006
4     2007
7     2008
1     2009
1     2010
1     2011
4     2012