All these IS, threads mushrooming. Are they really a necessity? havent we got enough?  who cares about percentages here and there,  isnt it enough that the overwhelming majority, indies or exclusives are way, way down.

In the eyes of Getty,  IS, is expendible, has always been. Pointless flogging a dead horse, isnt it.  Believe me on this one.

We keep going around in circles Christian, but I still haven't heard you explain your arguments why Getty would view a $50 million investment, now up to a turnover of roughly $300 million in a market segment that is still expanding as being expendable? That doesn't make any sense at all.

Kill iStock and the hole would be filled by SS/Dreamstime/Fotolia etc. - how would that benefit Getty? Without iStock they have nothing in the important segment between the bottom-feeder TS and their more upmarket proper RF - are you saying that they would just leave that on the table for their competitors? That is like deliberately turning their back to a whole lot of $$ - not really Getty like would it be?

Quote from: CarlssonInc. Stock Imagery Production on January 09, 2012, 03:19

Quote from: lagereek on January 09, 2012, 02:19

All these IS, threads mushrooming. Are they really a necessity? havent we got enough?  who cares about percentages here and there,  isnt it enough that the overwhelming majority, indies or exclusives are way, way down.

In the eyes of Getty,  IS, is expendible, has always been. Pointless flogging a dead horse, isnt it.  Believe me on this one.

We keep going around in circles Christian, but I still haven't heard you explain your arguments why Getty would view a $50 million investment, now up to a turnover of roughly $300 million in a market segment that is still expanding as being expendable? That doesn't make any sense at all.

Kill iStock and the hole would be filled by SS/Dreamstime/Fotolia etc. - how would that benefit Getty? Without iStock they have nothing in the important segment between the bottom-feeder TS and their more upmarket proper RF - are you saying that they would just leave that on the table for their competitors? That is like deliberately turning their back to a whole lot of $$ - not really Getty like would it be?

Hi Martin!

When Getty buy,  they buy to controle, to hold it at bay. Thats it. This is their track record and this is what they have done for the past 20 years or so. Seriously!  if they were really interested,  would they have enforced and turned IS,  into what it is today?  ofcourse not.
IS,  is just another trophy, to go with all the rest and in two years time, they are forgotten or lurking somewhere beneath the surface. You wait and see. Nothing is ever long-term,  just short and sharp. They can do business like that  but we?  we cant.

I guess time will tell, but I'm more along the line of Getty having gotten some things wrong with iStock (i.e. trying to control it too much, despite not understanding it fully), as well as things might not OVERALL be as bad as many (we) think - they don't care about individual contributors or group of contributors, only about iStock as a whole. The rough ride continues...