Quote from: SSArtist on January 05, 2015, 14:41

SS is actively selling our media files and probably with operational costs can not afford to pay us more.

IT amazes me when people with no special knowledge will happily proclaim that an agency "probably" couldn't afford to pay out more. There's absolutely no reason to believe that is true.

It is very unlikely that they will pay us more, because they have to maximise profits for shareholders and they are paying enough to get the content they need. But to suppose they COULDN'T pay more if they wanted to is a very large piece of uninformed speculation.

But that isn't in any way accusing them of being anything but straight in their dealings with us.

The quarterly figures show exactly what they spend, and what they profit. They made millions profit, to say they cant afford a raise is simply naive. They can afford to give us a raise and still increase their profits. As you say, its all about maximising profits now, so a raise would not fit the bill (pun intended)

I said "probably", which doesn't mean "definitely" !!! ... there must be more reasons why not to pay us more. We can guess all night long. But yeah good point, thanks for sharing your spec knowledge BaldricksTrousers and pointing to shareholders greed.
Yeah, cruel capitalism again.

Anyways, it's take it or leave it....

I think these guys are super pro and well deserve Bravo for all done so far. They def have a strategy and do know what they are doing.

Yours 
Naive SSArtist
 

Naive with rose colored glasses

Quote from: SSArtist on January 05, 2015, 15:09

I said "probably", which doesn't mean "definitely" !!! ... there must be more reasons why not to pay us more. We can guess all night long. But yeah good point, thanks for sharing your spec knowledge BaldricksTrousers and pointing to shareholders greed.
Yeah, cruel capitalism again.

Anyways, it's take it or leave it....

I think these guys are super pro and well deserve Bravo for all done so far. They def have a strategy and do know what they are doing.

Yours 
Naive SSArtist
 

Naive with rose colored glasses

Thanks...well I am glad old microstock wolfs will open my eyes and point me to the agency where we will ALL earn a fortune.
Until then, we will all stick with SS, be bitter and spit the fire towards top agency that actually feeds us. ...Hmmm.....

Because they perform better than others, we need to turn a blind eye? Questioning Shutterstock is not allowed because they do well?

Of course we should not turn blind eye and of course questioning Shutterstock or any other agency is allowed.

But saying thank you and bravo is allowed too, as these guys are feeding us along with 500 people who work for Shutterstock.

I wanted to be grateful this time of year, and before you jump to attack me again, please look at my previous posts (#21 ...) where I also voted for a raise.

Have a great day you ALL! 

Ya gotta love these groupies. Now we only need an ISArtist, DTArtist and FTArtist 

Because they perform better than others, we need to turn a blind eye? Questioning Shutterstock is not allowed because they do well?

Yes they do well, but with an ever increasing cost for production because of their demand of a certain level of quality, it would be only fair to compensate for that increased cost. Days of selling snaps from dusty HDs are long gone, the demand for quality has risen. A demand raised by the agency.

They used to sell this for 20 cent



Now they sell this for 25 cent

They can't sell it for 25 cents if you don't give it away submit it to them and enable that sort of pathetic royalty rate and enable the further devaluation of imagery. Even that horrible photo of the measuring tape is worth more than 25 cents.

No card this year.

I was wondering about this too. No card for me this year. Guess Jon is too busy sending buyers from SS to OFFSET to bother with sending out those lovely Christmas cards this year.

Because they perform better than others, we need to turn a blind eye? Questioning Shutterstock is not allowed because they do well?

Yes they do well, but with an ever increasing cost for production because of their demand of a certain level of quality, it would be only fair to compensate for that increased cost. Days of selling snaps from dusty HDs are long gone, the demand for quality has risen. A demand raised by the agency.

They used to sell this for 20 cent



Now they sell this for 25 cent

nice creative photo the 2nd one.
i can relate to the ridiculous idea in the comparision of zero cost vs production cost today to make the same money. then again, i also get 102 dollars for a single download on a zero cost image.

i agree with both sides. sure, i like to see an increase in commission. but then, that was what happens in dreamstime where the big increase in earning falls as soon as your image earns the top level. so that is a bad idea too.

i would say, if i look at my year-to-year and see a significant growth, ie bigger payout to me each month, then i would say i am happy the way it is.
as opposed to having everyone get an increase in % commission and see no increase in download.
as someone once said, i don't care so long as i am see my payout each month get bigger.

i think i go for that than anything else. show me the money, that's all.

I wonder when we finally get contributor stats working?

Quote from: Semmick Photo on January 05, 2015, 15:36

Because they perform better than others, we need to turn a blind eye? Questioning Shutterstock is not allowed because they do well?

Yes they do well, but with an ever increasing cost for production because of their demand of a certain level of quality, it would be only fair to compensate for that increased cost. Days of selling snaps from dusty HDs are long gone, the demand for quality has risen. A demand raised by the agency.

They used to sell this for 20 cent



Now they sell this for 25 cent

They can't sell it for 25 cents if you don't give it away submit it to them and enable that sort of pathetic royalty rate and enable the further devaluation of imagery. Even that horrible photo of the measuring tape is worth more than 25 cents.

The measuring tape photo is now worthless, it can be snapped on an iPhone for no cost by anyone with no skill at all.

Good illustration of the disparity of production values for the various images that are available under the one price fits all system and how little prices have changed in 10 years.

Wholly unsustainable in the long term without some kind of curation and tiered pricing.