I just heard of a study where they discovered that people who complain live longer than those that don't.

We should be grateful these stock agencies extend our lives by giving so much to complain about! 

We should give you a year or two for reality to sink in and then we can have this conversation.

Take a short cut and pay close attention to the actions of the men who are steering the microstock ships.

Most of them have put ducks in a row to reap millions in the near short term and their plans count on us funding their success. However just as in the sub prime scam they will be happy to let us pay for their folly's at the expense of our port assets. We are well on our way to Free.

Most of them have put ducks in a row to reap millions in the near short term and their plans count on us funding their success. However just as in the sub prime scam they will be happy to let us pay for their folly's at the expense of our port assets. We are well on our way to Free.

they won't be needing us anyway as they are using it  for moneylaundering too, like as suggested by one of the plot of some terrible B movie. can't remember the title of that 2012 movie , i thought it was written by perharps a microstocker who got pissedoff with the business. poor theory, still can still be true like some baseball cards or telemarketing companies have been  known also to be moneylaundry . some of which were closed by the narc in the late early 2k.

true or not, it certainly is a good idea if you are into writing a B movie

I never thought that I would get roasted....
This is what I am doing.... http://www.shutterstock.com/g/sangoiri

A good example of the current site mentality - someone reports good sales on Canstock score on agree 0. Two people report decreases and get 10 and 11 thumbs up. We're doomed I tell ye!!!

That has nothing to do with site mentality IMO. It just means that more people see declining sales than share success, thus more people agree when someone reports bad sales.

I never thought that I would get roasted....

Here's yet another quote: "A cynic is just a disappointed optimist". Probably all of us once were where you are now.

"Never hit a milking cow" should surely be aimed at the agencies rather than the content providers.
The people who supply them have, in cow terms, had their fields sold, are being kept inside on concrete, and are fed a minimum ration to maintain milk production.
It might make for rich "farmers", but it makes for damned unhappy cows!

Why so many complaints? Well, MSG is probably the most popular microstock forum so people tend to come here to vent with other contributors. The scenario below is probably why people here are a bit grumpy.

• New contributor starts submitting images to agencies and is euphoric over finding out people will pay for their images. They dream of quitting their day job and retiring early. They're also oblivious to the history of agency/contributors relations so this is a fresh starting point for them
• After getting a few sales they submit images like crazy and enjoy BDEs, BWEs, and every other acronym you can think of that begins with Best. They can't understand why some of the people who have been around for a while complain so much
• One of the agencies decides it's time to change the contributor royalty model and not to the benefit of the contributors. Not a big deal to the newbie but people flock to the forums to complain that their sales have dropped 25/50/75% and this is the worst sales since 200X.
• Not-so-new-ish contributor is still submitting images like crazy but royalties aren't increasing much or have plateaud.  They aren't happy but don't complain and go MSG to start asking questions if this is normal.
• One of the agencies is outed for trying to hide some scamish partnering deal where contributors either get nothing or pennies for sales. Another agency cuts the contributor royalty percentage. Another agency drops prices.  Not-so-new-ish contributor's sales are falling and they're getting tired of constant bad news. They go to MSG to complain. And they complain more as more bad things continue to happen
• A new contributor joins MSG and their first post is asking why so many people complain. See #1.

Hey ! How do you know about my history here??

I thought of it this way the other day...

This is basically my full-time job. Imagine if the company you worked for hired thousands of new people to do your job every day. Those people asked you to help them to get better at their your job and said things like, "hey, don't worry. I just do this for fun and don't really need the money". All this while you get paid less and told by your company how great everything is going.

OK. Now, stop imagining because this is reality for a lot of us. Honestly, I probably should be happy that I'm still treading water because reality is kind of insanely unreal.

Sure... but now you need to be 3 times more creative, then next year 4 times, and so on. Perhaps some of that creativity should go to figuring out how to make more than $.38 or less per download.

Quote from: PaulieWalnuts on February 18, 2015, 15:00

Why so many complaints? Well, MSG is probably the most popular microstock forum so people tend to come here to vent with other contributors. The scenario below is probably why people here are a bit grumpy.

• New contributor starts submitting images to agencies and is euphoric over finding out people will pay for their images. They dream of quitting their day job and retiring early. They're also oblivious to the history of agency/contributors relations so this is a fresh starting point for them
• After getting a few sales they submit images like crazy and enjoy BDEs, BWEs, and every other acronym you can think of that begins with Best. They can't understand why some of the people who have been around for a while complain so much
• One of the agencies decides it's time to change the contributor royalty model and not to the benefit of the contributors. Not a big deal to the newbie but people flock to the forums to complain that their sales have dropped 25/50/75% and this is the worst sales since 200X.
• Not-so-new-ish contributor is still submitting images like crazy but royalties aren't increasing much or have plateaud.  They aren't happy but don't complain and go MSG to start asking questions if this is normal.
• One of the agencies is outed for trying to hide some scamish partnering deal where contributors either get nothing or pennies for sales. Another agency cuts the contributor royalty percentage. Another agency drops prices.  Not-so-new-ish contributor's sales are falling and they're getting tired of constant bad news. They go to MSG to complain. And they complain more as more bad things continue to happen
• A new contributor joins MSG and their first post is asking why so many people complain. See #1.

Hey ! How do you know about my history here??

We know everything Ron 

I am sorry to tell you, but whenever I take part in a survey I produce nonsense figures. Don�t ask me why. I hope that there not too many people like me.