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Author Topic: Sales slump  (Read 98452 times)

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« Reply #100 on: August 11, 2010, 21:55 »
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Some buyers prefer subscriptions, I am sure shutterstock would of continued raising prices if it wasn't for other sites like thinkstock keeping them down.  Now who owns thinkstock :)


I'd believe it if Thinkstock actually had some clout.  Which they don't given their pitiful Alexa numbers.  They are growing, but their numbers are still laughably low.  SS was undercut by FT in my opinion 2 years ago.  The other agency sub plans seem to undercut SS too.  Everyone seems to want to blame Getty on this issue.  I bet they only wish Thinkstock had that type of industry power.
« Last Edit: August 11, 2010, 22:00 by djpadavona »


WarrenPrice

« Reply #101 on: August 11, 2010, 22:40 »
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Some buyers prefer subscriptions, I am sure shutterstock would of continued raising prices if it wasn't for other sites like thinkstock keeping them down.  Now who owns thinkstock :)

I'd believe it if Thinkstock actually had some clout.  Which they don't given their pitiful Alexa numbers.  They are growing, but their numbers are still laughably low.  SS was undercut by FT in my opinion 2 years ago.  The other agency sub plans seem to undercut SS too.  Everyone seems to want to blame Getty on this issue.  I bet they only wish Thinkstock had that type of industry power.


I don't know about clout or how much of the SLUMP is the fault of Think Stock or Getty or iStock.  I have noticed one interesting thing, however;  Think Stock is advertising, promoting, and marketing.  iStock is promoting (or offering cheaper images at Think Stock).  Maybe it's just me?  Every time I check my Yahoo, Verizon or Google email, there is an ad for Think Stock.  Think Stock is being credited for images used in Yahoo News.  Is it just that they have my address?  Am I the only one seeing the effort being paid for, I assume, by Think Stock? 

Maybe they are behind the slump but, if so, others are standing by idly letting it happen.

I have a feeling most of the industry has adopted the attitude, "Let's not worry about making more money.  Let's concentrate on keeping more money."   ::)
« Last Edit: August 11, 2010, 22:44 by WarrenPrice »

« Reply #102 on: August 12, 2010, 00:16 »
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It just doesn't add up though Warren.  If you take the growth of Thinkstock's traffic, it doesn't nearly equal loss of iStockphoto's traffic.  Nor the loss of Shutterstock's traffic.  I also don't buy the theory that everyone suddenly realized the economy wasn't in full recovery and all decided to stop purchasing stock photos at the same time.  But there is a severe slump being felt at all of the Big 4 if the contributor reports are to be believed, and the Alexa charts are to be believed.  None of us know what's going on, which makes it all the more unnerving.  I'm relatively certain Thinkstock isn't the culprit.  They don't even register yet on our "Low Earners" list.

lagereek

« Reply #103 on: August 12, 2010, 00:52 »
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It just doesn't add up though Warren.  If you take the growth of Thinkstock's traffic, it doesn't nearly equal loss of iStockphoto's traffic.  Nor the loss of Shutterstock's traffic.  I also don't buy the theory that everyone suddenly realized the economy wasn't in full recovery and all decided to stop purchasing stock photos at the same time.  But there is a severe slump being felt at all of the Big 4 if the contributor reports are to be believed, and the Alexa charts are to be believed.  None of us know what's going on, which makes it all the more unnerving.  I'm relatively certain Thinkstock isn't the culprit.  They don't even register yet on our "Low Earners" list.

Agreeing with you on this one. Its too early for TS to be any culprit here.  Again as Ive said earlier, a business concept in the creative world gets its 10 years or so which is a proven track-record and thats it really. Plus the fact the entire Micro world house too much of everything, too many files and people are involved, the supply is outstripping the demand.
Its that easy!  were looking for culprits to blame, etc, chasing shadows but in reallity the Micro has peaked and now?  well the happy snappers will slowly dwindle away and the serious contributors has got no option but to remain.
IMO,  only a fool would start or join up with Micro agencies today,  the juicy days are history.  Seen this before  and its not a doom and gloom stuff, its a natural progression.

« Reply #104 on: August 12, 2010, 01:28 »
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I have poor sales. You don't. You're successful and obviously know a lot more about this business than I do.
I feel the need to intervene here  ;)
You might have poor sales for now but your portfolio is excellent. Your opponent is right about observations about the industry but it doesn't matter. Your images are top, contentwise and qualitywise.
If sales are little for now, maybe it's your keywording or the whims of the search engines.
Doesn't let that discourage you and make more, more, more!
Join the guild of image producers that enjoys making images for the fun and the satisfaction. We regulars will never reach the numbers of the stock-beasts. I enjoyed every image I made and I frankly don't care about saleability. Some buyers must be attracted by it since most of my sales on DT are N/A (found by visual search) and I'm in a few niches that aren't covered without staring at the best sellers or copying, but just by coincidence.
So go on by all means.

« Reply #105 on: August 12, 2010, 02:59 »
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I found the comment that IS is overpriced to be interesting. Heck, a bunch of hard working people spend hours taking photos, getting models, filing releases, editing, pay for expensive equipment, lights and cameras and a buyer says, they are over priced! I appreciate the buyers opinions but if IS is overpriced, then Microstock is dead. You can buy a decent size photo, professionally created, with model release, quality controlled, for about $5 on demand, and that's "too expensive"?

As iStock's prices have gone up, more and more people have drifted out a the microstock mind-set ("it's volume, stupid") to the trad mindset ("it's price, stupid").

To make the point, I will guarantee that I will put my entire portfolio on any site that pays me just 1c per download AS LONG AS that site guarantees me that it will sell every single photo five times a day for the next 10 years. That would be 5 x 365 x 10 guaranteed income per file, or $182.50c per picture.  Does anybody want to take me up on that? No? Tell you what, I'll even go exclusive for 10 years on that basis. Why? Because for 6.000 pictures that would be bringing me in $300 a day which is a hell of a lot more than I get from all the sites combined right now. In fact, I might even settle for 0.5c per sale on that basis.

Your earnings - whether you can pay for models, lights, cameras etc on top of the rent and food - depend on [av commission x av no. daily sales]. As long as neither of those numbers is zero and one of them is very high, it doesn't matter what the other one is. But as one goes up, the other one goes down. The question is where the balance lies which gives the maximum return from the sum. It looks as if iStock has pushed up commissions to the point where sales decline faster than commissions rise.

There are lots of factors affecting this in different ways, both from the perspective of the agency and the perspective of the photographer, but one of them is obviously the availability of images at different price points from other companies. Another is whether people would rather just do without an image than pay above a certain level.

However, price alone does not dictate whether or not microstock is dead for photographers.

« Reply #106 on: August 12, 2010, 03:01 »
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I'd believe it if Thinkstock actually had some clout.  Which they don't given their pitiful Alexa numbers.  They are growing, but their numbers are still laughably low.  SS was undercut by FT in my opinion 2 years ago.  The other agency sub plans seem to undercut SS too.  Everyone seems to want to blame Getty on this issue.  I bet they only wish Thinkstock had that type of industry power.

Here's another interesting statistic:
http://google.com/trends?q=istockphoto.com%2C+photos.com&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0

Guess who owns photos.com?

I don't understand what Getty wants to achieve. Why do they direct buyers towards sub sites? It must bring less royalties to them and ofc also to us. The only plausible explanation is that they wanna eat into Shutterstock sales. But is SS really such a pain in the ass that they are prepared to sacrifice IS?

« Reply #107 on: August 12, 2010, 03:19 »
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I think an underlying message of what's killing the market is clear in what hqimages said. It's us, the contributors. We do it to ourselves.

Buyers are going to cheaper sites. Contributors make less at cheaper sites. Contributors continue to support cheaper sites.

When a large enough percentage of unprofitable contributors give up, more sites will close, supply will drop, and demand will drive prices back up to a level that is sustainable for contrubutors to justify investing time.

Looks like we're headed downward. Enjoy the ride.

I have to disagree (to the statement bolded above).

As contributor I can make more on a site that sells for half of Istock's prices - when they give me 50% comission, as still some sites do.
If Istock wants (independent) contributors to stop supporting cheaper sites, they must raise comissions. Simple.

« Reply #108 on: August 12, 2010, 03:22 »
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I'd believe it if Thinkstock actually had some clout.  Which they don't given their pitiful Alexa numbers.  They are growing, but their numbers are still laughably low.  SS was undercut by FT in my opinion 2 years ago.  The other agency sub plans seem to undercut SS too.  Everyone seems to want to blame Getty on this issue.  I bet they only wish Thinkstock had that type of industry power.

Here's another interesting statistic:
http://google.com/trends?q=istockphoto.com%2C+photos.com&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0

Guess who owns photos.com?

I don't understand what Getty wants to achieve. Why do they direct buyers towards sub sites? It must bring less royalties to them and ofc also to us. The only plausible explanation is that they wanna eat into Shutterstock sales. But is SS really such a pain in the ass that they are prepared to sacrifice IS?


If you change the search term istockphoto.com to istockphoto or istock you get a very different graph, of course if you take the .com off photos.com the result is very different yet again!

« Reply #109 on: August 12, 2010, 03:24 »
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I'd believe it if Thinkstock actually had some clout.  Which they don't given their pitiful Alexa numbers.  They are growing, but their numbers are still laughably low.  SS was undercut by FT in my opinion 2 years ago.  The other agency sub plans seem to undercut SS too.  Everyone seems to want to blame Getty on this issue.  I bet they only wish Thinkstock had that type of industry power.

Here's another interesting statistic:
http://google.com/trends?q=istockphoto.com%2C+photos.com&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0

Guess who owns photos.com?

I don't understand what Getty wants to achieve. Why do they direct buyers towards sub sites? It must bring less royalties to them and ofc also to us. The only plausible explanation is that they wanna eat into Shutterstock sales. But is SS really such a pain in the ass that they are prepared to sacrifice IS?


This is indeed very interesting although have you noticed from where most of the photos.com traffic comes? India? Why such a huge portion?

« Reply #110 on: August 12, 2010, 03:30 »
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Some buyers prefer subscriptions, I am sure shutterstock would of continued raising prices if it wasn't for other sites like thinkstock keeping them down.  Now who owns thinkstock :)

Every time you bring up the evil empire and Thinkstock, matching established agency prices, I'll be forced to point out that Deposit Photos is undercutting those price levels, but no one seems to be targeting them as the problem.  ??? Oh that's right, DP pays 25c an upload for people to prostitute themselves, and gives away free credits to "buyers" for artificial sales numbers.  >:(

A number of people have pointed out that ThinkStock sales stink and are less than StockXpert sales, but then someone will counter that ThinkStock is hurting IS sales. How can they be selling less and hurting IS downloads at the same time. Some sort of math contradiction with that. It's impossible!  ;D

It's nice of ThinkStock to provide a convenient scapegoat for all the ills of the industry including sales slumps everywhere, but I really think people need to look further than blaming Getty and the recycling industry that ThinkStock represents, a collection of old photos from old agencies, dumped on a sub site. ThinkStock does not represent a vital competitive site, it's more like an old cobweb covered collection getting dusted off in hope of getting anything out of it.

Anyone criticizing Thinkstock without looking at what's offered there, should really take a few minutes just to see what's for sale, before they keep claiming it's stealing business and causing the sales slump.

I found the comment that IS is overpriced to be interesting. Heck, a bunch of hard working people spend hours taking photos, getting models, filing releases, editing, pay for expensive equipment, lights and cameras and a buyer says, they are over priced! I appreciate the buyers opinions but if IS is overpriced, then Microstock is dead. You can buy a decent size photo, professionally created, with model release, quality controlled, for about $5 on demand, and that's "too expensive"?

Do designers work for free? I mean, if someone wants free photos, and photographers to work for free, then they should be willing to work for free too!  :o

So what's killing the market? Subs, cheap competition or buyers who aren't willing to pay micro prices for high quality images? Makes me wonder...
I was replying to the post above mine that was about istock losing its buyers to subs sites when their owners have just opened a new subs site.  Can't you see the irony :)  But I still don't get how thinkstock matching other sites prices and paying me substantially less is a good idea.  As for depositphotos, they aren't going to take a significant amount of buyers away from the higher paying sites.  Thinkstock are in a completely different league.

« Reply #111 on: August 12, 2010, 03:50 »
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Thinkstock have no review costs and are selling their own content, they don't have to pay contributors anything for that.  How do we know how well they are doing when those images are at the top of their search?

I am so disappointed that shutterstock hasn't done more to fight back.  They have had months now to get their own exclusive images collection together, that would at least offer something that might bring in new buyers or stop them from looking elsewhere.

« Reply #112 on: August 12, 2010, 03:56 »
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For the first time I have had several sales at IS in one day. 5 the last 3 days. Could the buyers be responding to the reduced prices?

lagereek

« Reply #113 on: August 12, 2010, 03:57 »
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Thinkstock have no review costs and are selling their own content, they don't have to pay contributors anything for that.  How do we know how well they are doing when those images are at the top of their search?

I am so disappointed that shutterstock hasn't done more to fight back.  They have had months now to get their own exclusive images collection together, that would at least offer something that might bring in new buyers or stop them from looking elsewhere.

Shutterstock seams to live in a world of their own, their editing is a down and out killer, for the worse that is.

« Reply #114 on: August 12, 2010, 04:02 »
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If you change the search term istockphoto.com to istockphoto or istock you get a very different graph, of course if you take the .com off photos.com the result is very different yet again!
No mather which one you choose you can see a downward trend for IS and upward trend for photos.com.
 (well expect if you use "photos", since its a generally used noun and has a much higher index because of that). It's also interesting to notice that this years summer slump on IS is much lower than last years.

I'm not sure why India is so dominant in the photos.com reports. Maybe there is a very aggressive marketing campaign going on there?

« Reply #115 on: August 12, 2010, 04:51 »
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I am so disappointed that shutterstock hasn't done more to fight back.  They have had months now to get their own exclusive images collection together, that would at least offer something that might bring in new buyers or stop them from looking elsewhere.

I think SS are doing fine, especially in comparison to other agencies. They have 'fought back' with the introduction of PPD sales, directly competing with the others, and PPD sales continue to grow. Last month revenue from PPDs + ELs were 40% of my total. So far this month they are 50% of my total. If revenue from PPD + EL at SS were a separate agency they would actually be bigger than Dreamstime over the last couple of months. And all that when we haven't even had a pay rise at SS for nearly 3 years.

« Reply #116 on: August 12, 2010, 05:21 »
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I am so disappointed that shutterstock hasn't done more to fight back.  They have had months now to get their own exclusive images collection together, that would at least offer something that might bring in new buyers or stop them from looking elsewhere.

I think SS are doing fine, especially in comparison to other agencies. They have 'fought back' with the introduction of PPD sales, directly competing with the others, and PPD sales continue to grow. Last month revenue from PPDs + ELs were 40% of my total. So far this month they are 50% of my total. If revenue from PPD + EL at SS were a separate agency they would actually be bigger than Dreamstime over the last couple of months. And all that when we haven't even had a pay rise at SS for nearly 3 years.
Direct PPD sales were introduced 2 years ago now.  They did a good job with that but what have they done to counter the threat from the other sites moving in to subs?  What have they done to give an alternative for all the people that don't want to upload to lots of sites?  Why haven't they looked at Vetta and tried something similar to give their buyers a higher quality collection and their contributors the chance to earn higher commissions?

Shutterstock are doing well but I still think they need to do much more or they could end up regretting it.

PaulieWalnuts

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« Reply #117 on: August 12, 2010, 05:26 »
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I have to disagree (to the statement bolded above).
As contributor I can make more on a site that sells for half of Istock's prices - when they give me 50% comission, as still some sites do.
If Istock wants (independent) contributors to stop supporting cheaper sites, they must raise comissions. Simple.

So if you had the same 500 images at Istock and Featurepics, you would earn more at Featurepics?

« Reply #118 on: August 12, 2010, 06:27 »
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Adding one data point from an iStock exclusive, sales since F5 went live have been very good - seems more like September than August. I'm not thrilled about the wrinkles that make the site more of a pain for contributors, but as long as the buyers keep buying, I'll live with it.

I haven't been checking search placement of late, so I have no clue if anything has changed with respect to exclusives vs. independents. I haven't seen any odd patterns of sales - a good mix of newer and older files and Tuesday was as if someone had declared XXXL day - for no obvious reason, lots of larger sizes.

Sorry to hear that my experience isn't apparently typical.

« Reply #119 on: August 12, 2010, 06:37 »
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I have to disagree (to the statement bolded above).
As contributor I can make more on a site that sells for half of Istock's prices - when they give me 50% comission, as still some sites do.
If Istock wants (independent) contributors to stop supporting cheaper sites, they must raise comissions. Simple.

So if you had the same 500 images at Istock and Featurepics, you would earn more at Featurepics?

No, certainly not.

But if (big IF) buyers would move to Featurepics due to their lower prices, I would make more.

That's why I think it doesn't necessarily hurt to offer images at a lower price point.

« Reply #120 on: August 12, 2010, 06:48 »
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Direct PPD sales were introduced 2 years ago now.  They did a good job with that but what have they done to counter the threat from the other sites moving in to subs?  What have they done to give an alternative for all the people that don't want to upload to lots of sites?  Why haven't they looked at Vetta and tried something similar to give their buyers a higher quality collection and their contributors the chance to earn higher commissions?

Shutterstock are doing well but I still think they need to do much more or they could end up regretting it.

What they've done, to counteract the threat from other sites offering subs, is to not give us a rise for three years. What would you suggest they do instead?

Realistically how could they offer exclusivity? They'd have to pay out a lot more in commissions without any means of charging their subs customers more. Don't forget that the profitability of the subs model is entirely reliant on customers not downloading all of their entitlement. A Vetta collection wouldn't work either at SS's position in the marketplace either __ it would like trying to sell fillet steak dinners at McDonald's.

I don't understand why you are so critical of SS. It was started by one bloke who opened his doors to budding photographers less than six years ago and has since grown into a business with something like $100M annual turnover __ the 2nd largest microstock agency in the world. At a guess they probably pay out in excess of $3M in commissions every month. I'm sure when Jon feels he needs you to advise him how to run his business better he will be in contact.

« Reply #121 on: August 12, 2010, 07:31 »
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Direct PPD sales were introduced 2 years ago now.  They did a good job with that but what have they done to counter the threat from the other sites moving in to subs?  What have they done to give an alternative for all the people that don't want to upload to lots of sites?  Why haven't they looked at Vetta and tried something similar to give their buyers a higher quality collection and their contributors the chance to earn higher commissions?

Shutterstock are doing well but I still think they need to do much more or they could end up regretting it.

What they've done, to counteract the threat from other sites offering subs, is to not give us a rise for three years. What would you suggest they do instead?

Realistically how could they offer exclusivity? They'd have to pay out a lot more in commissions without any means of charging their subs customers more. Don't forget that the profitability of the subs model is entirely reliant on customers not downloading all of their entitlement. A Vetta collection wouldn't work either at SS's position in the marketplace either __ it would like trying to sell fillet steak dinners at McDonald's.

I don't understand why you are so critical of SS. It was started by one bloke who opened his doors to budding photographers less than six years ago and has since grown into a business with something like $100M annual turnover __ the 2nd largest microstock agency in the world. At a guess they probably pay out in excess of $3M in commissions every month. I'm sure when Jon feels he needs you to advise him how to run his business better he will be in contact.
They could have exclusives images, charge the buyers more for those, as they aren't on other sites and pay us more commission.  What's wrong with trying that?  DT are allready charging more for subs with images that are on the higher levels and paying us higher commissions.  If one site is already doing it, why can't SS?  I don't think it would be hard to implement and it might give them something to stop more people going exclusive with istock. 

And I don't think giving my opinion in a forum is being critical of them, I have said lots of times that they are my favourite microstock site but I still think they could and should try to do better.

« Reply #122 on: August 12, 2010, 07:58 »
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ehehe seems like a lot of fun, what photos will those agencies have? just yours? :P

They will have photos from contributors who are profitable businesspeople.

I ran some numbers and I'm estimating the average hobbyist micro newbie earns less than 10 cents per hour for their efforts. Once this becomes common knowledge, hobbyists and other non serious business people will avoid micro and the existing ones will go back to Flickr where you don't make much less and it's more fun.

I am now a profitable businessguy thanks for the motivation :)

Flicker is a lot of fun for sure, never been there and won't go :P

« Reply #123 on: August 12, 2010, 08:05 »
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They could have exclusives images, charge the buyers more for those, as they aren't on other sites and pay us more commission.  What's wrong with trying that?  DT are allready charging more for subs with images that are on the higher levels and paying us higher commissions.  If one site is already doing it, why can't SS?  I don't think it would be hard to implement and it might give them something to stop more people going exclusive with istock. 

Yes, DT have been trying lots of things to squeeze ever more money out of both the customers and the contributors __ and look what's happened as a result. DT are now generating about 10% of my stock income whereas 4 years ago it was more like 20%. In comparison SS have maintained a relatively steady 25-30% of my income for 5 years. This month they are on target for 31% and pushing IS for supremacy (it's only because of a couple of chunky EL's that IS remains in the lead).

Unlike DT Jon has never reduced our commissions, introduced a 'lock-in', floated our stuff off to 'partner programmes, or substantially changed the ToS in any way. Yes, DT does have an exclusivity programme __ but the only thing it can do for you is to lose you the majority of your income. What's the point?

The beauty of SS has always been it's simplicity and straight dealing with both contributors and customers alike. It certainly doesn't need to learn any lessons from the like of DT.

« Reply #124 on: August 12, 2010, 08:47 »
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They could have exclusives images, charge the buyers more for those, as they aren't on other sites and pay us more commission.  What's wrong with trying that?  DT are allready charging more for subs with images that are on the higher levels and paying us higher commissions.  If one site is already doing it, why can't SS?  I don't think it would be hard to implement and it might give them something to stop more people going exclusive with istock. 

Yes, DT have been trying lots of things to squeeze ever more money out of both the customers and the contributors __ and look what's happened as a result. DT are now generating about 10% of my stock income whereas 4 years ago it was more like 20%. In comparison SS have maintained a relatively steady 25-30% of my income for 5 years. This month they are on target for 31% and pushing IS for supremacy (it's only because of a couple of chunky EL's that IS remains in the lead).

Unlike DT Jon has never reduced our commissions, introduced a 'lock-in', floated our stuff off to 'partner programmes, or substantially changed the ToS in any way. Yes, DT does have an exclusivity programme __ but the only thing it can do for you is to lose you the majority of your income. What's the point?

The beauty of SS has always been it's simplicity and straight dealing with both contributors and customers alike. It certainly doesn't need to learn any lessons from the like of DT.
I was only pointing out that it is possible to sell subs at higher prices.  DT are a mess for lots of other reasons, I don't think that is a big factor.

Don't you remember the last SS raise?  There were a lot of people complaining at the time but that seems to of been forgotten about, it looked like a commission cut to me but with their subs model we don't really know what commission we make.

Don't get me wrong, compared to the other big sites, they have been great but is that saying much?  I still think they can do much more to make themselves more money and pay us more.


 

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