Author Topic: Shutterstock has paid $1 billion to contributors (Read 6313 times)

Shelma1 · « **on:** December 10, 2019, 09:17 »

https://www.shutterstock.com/blog/1-billion-contributor-earnings

I was surprised to see that my earnings hit a pretty big milestone at some point this year, despite my not uploading anything in months and months (though my monthly earnings are dropping).

Pauws99 · « **Reply #1 on:** December 10, 2019, 10:37 »

The messages I get from that is a) Growth is slowing markedly b) Oringer has gained more than the entire amount paid out to contributors over the years....nice ;-)

ouatedeP · « **Reply #2 on:** December 10, 2019, 11:17 »

COLOR TRENDS FOR 2020:

LUSH LAVA

uhm, maybe a bit of bad taste currently

Uncle Pete · « **Reply #3 on:** December 10, 2019, 11:26 »

Quote from: Shelma1 on December 10, 2019, 09:17

https://www.shutterstock.com/blog/1-billion-contributor-earnings

I was surprised to see that my earnings hit a pretty big milestone at some point this year, despite my not uploading anything in months and months (though my monthly earnings are dropping).

Nothing personal from me, I crawl along, even with new uploads, but no matter. SS is my best earning site on a continuing basis. I enjoy the discretionary income.

If contributors made $1 Billion then SS made $4 billion. Hey thanks. And this blog promo is for the blue hairs and other aging investors to pump up the value of the stock, because earnings are under preforming and the stock has been down from May to Oct. Lets watch the 4th quarter report with all the double talk when SS doesn't make projected earnings again.

pancaketom · « **Reply #4 on:** December 10, 2019, 13:12 »

I wish they had the Y axis labeled or even or something in that graph. eg 2015-2018 looks like a straight line, but the yearly differences are 23, 11, and 9. I'm tempted to put the numbers into a spreadsheet to see what it really looks like. I'm guessing vaguely like the left side of a bell curve. I'd also like to see a breakdown of SS, offset, premiumbeat, etc. or even more interesting see the SS broken down into video, on demand, subs, etc. I wonder what changed in the years it made a big jump - payout at a lower threshold? added offset? or is there really not much of a change, they just made the bars longer for some reason.

I am also surprised how low N America is compared to Europe. Maybe sales are all going to E Europe.

I guess infographics are OK, but I'd really rather some format that was higher in information and lower in glitz. I don't think SS really wants to provide much information though, or at least wants to obscure a lot and only tell the story they want to tell.

Pauws99 · « **Reply #5 on:** December 10, 2019, 14:58 »

Quote from: pancaketom on December 10, 2019, 13:12

I wish they had the Y axis labeled or even or something in that graph. eg 2015-2018 looks like a straight line, but the yearly differences are 23, 11, and 9. I'm tempted to put the numbers into a spreadsheet to see what it really looks like. I'm guessing vaguely like the left side of a bell curve. I'd also like to see a breakdown of SS, offset, premiumbeat, etc. or even more interesting see the SS broken down into video, on demand, subs, etc. I wonder what changed in the years it made a big jump - payout at a lower threshold? added offset? or is there really not much of a change, they just made the bars longer for some reason.

I am also surprised how low N America is compared to Europe. Maybe sales are all going to E Europe.

I guess infographics are OK, but I'd really rather some format that was higher in information and lower in glitz. I don't think SS really wants to provide much information though, or at least wants to obscure a lot and only tell the story they want to tell.

I must admit looking at the graph I'm not sure bar sizes are accurate. I'd be tempted to plot the year on year percentage growth.....I suspect thats going down quite fast. The share price seems to be based on an expectation of future growth. I for one am not betting on it.

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #6 on:** December 10, 2019, 19:01 »

The percentage growth (skipping the first couple of years as it skews the chart too wildly) tells a very different story from the dollar payout growth. If you look at the increase in contributors over those years (I don't have the numbers to hand) I'll bet it gets even more grim.

They added video in 2006; acquired BigStock in 2009, did the Facebook deal and added offset in 2013, acquired WebDAM in 2014 (and sold it in 2018); acquired Premium Beat, Rex Features and BEImages in 2015, Flashstock in 2017

pancaketom · « **Reply #7 on:** December 10, 2019, 20:30 »

Thanks for those graphs - much as I suspected - and what is going on in the graph they put in their infographic -it shows 2 big jumps and otherwise a mostly straight line - but nothing like the actual numbers would suggest. Growth is definitely slowing or stopping but the # of contributors and assets for sale does not seem to be slowing, this is probably even more drastic for SS not counting the other arenas.

jonbull · « **Reply #8 on:** December 11, 2019, 06:36 »

considering that from 2016 to 2019 the growth is minimal, and last year practically zero, and considering that they added 10 million images a week it's clear this business is finished from a contributor perspective. it's not case that last year of going earning is 2016, last year new images sell and still sell very good is 2016., that from 2016 my earning are exactly the same plus minus 2 3 per cent, it's not a surprise....they simply throw away money accepting every crap in the last two year without any sense. they are not growing at all. next year will see this chart will begin downward in the typical bell shape.

YadaYadaYada · « **Reply #9 on:** December 11, 2019, 07:24 »

Quote from: jonbull on December 11, 2019, 06:36

considering that from 2016 to 2019 the growth is minimal, and last year practically zero, and considering that they added 10 million images a week it's clear this business is finished from a contributor perspective. it's not case that last year of going earning is 2016, last year new images sell and still sell very good is 2016., that from 2016 my earning are exactly the same plus minus 2 3 per cent, it's not a surprise....they simply throw away money accepting every crap in the last two year without any sense. they are not growing at all. next year will see this chart will begin downward in the typical bell shape.

You just figured that out?

jonbull · « **Reply #10 on:** December 11, 2019, 08:43 »

Quote from: YadaYadaYada on December 11, 2019, 07:24

Quote from: jonbull on December 11, 2019, 06:36
considering that from 2016 to 2019 the growth is minimal, and last year practically zero, and considering that they added 10 million images a week it's clear this business is finished from a contributor perspective. it's not case that last year of going earning is 2016, last year new images sell and still sell very good is 2016., that from 2016 my earning are exactly the same plus minus 2 3 per cent, it's not a surprise....they simply throw away money accepting every crap in the last two year without any sense. they are not growing at all. next year will see this chart will begin downward in the typical bell shape.

You just figured that out?

it's a fact...just watch the graph..the tendency iOS pretty evident...next year probably they will have zero growth and from then they will go downward.

Snow · « **Reply #11 on:** December 11, 2019, 11:51 »

nevermind

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #12 on:** December 11, 2019, 12:33 »

I find it hard to view this positively - just a reminder that they spent way too much money on a fancy building and trendy perks for employees - but they lit up the Empire State Building in celebration of the $1billion payout milestone:

https://www.facebook.com/Shutterstock/photos/a.76665266277/10157617955896278/?type=3&theater

BalkanskiMacak · « **Reply #13 on:** December 11, 2019, 13:25 »

Actually, this graph is just basic economics, as a growth can't be exponential indefinitely, the data about the total payout, and the total revenue and benefits are what matter. About the last one, the overall evolution of the economic situation during the next months will be crucial.

That being said, as I was writing before, we can expect a few agencies to disappear and/or merged, as the market is saturated. TBH, I'm still surprised it did not happen before. I would definitely see Dreamstime being acquired, as well as 123RF disappearing a way or another (the same for DP). All of this, as well, could have some impact on the business and on Shutterstock.

guy · « **Reply #14 on:** December 11, 2019, 16:47 »

Telling us this news should've come along with an announcement that Shutterstock was going to increase the contributors' take. Otherwise, it's just them gloating about making 4x as much as us off of our hard work with nothing in return. They're pretty much shouting at us on the floor from atop their huge pile of gold. Thanks, Smaug.

jonbull · « **Reply #15 on:** December 11, 2019, 18:12 »

Quote from: paulvg on December 11, 2019, 16:47

Telling us this news should've come along with an announcement that Shutterstock was going to increase the contributors' take. Otherwise, it's just them gloating about making 4x as much as us off of our hard work with nothing in return. They're pretty much shouting at us on the floor from atop their huge pile of gold. Thanks, Smaug.

for me is the contrary. soon they should simply cut our take to sustain an economic growth in front of stock holders...it-s clear that if thing keep like this , next two quarter they won-t any way keep the expectations of growth the market has...so thy simply will tell us another great news for us to cut our share to 0,25 cent per image for any contributors ....they won-t give a s..t to differentiate contributor at that point...they will screw every drop of milk till they can and then sell the business to some private funds or fire most of workers and cut again our take. it-s pretty simple. my only hope is adobe at this point. it seems grow double digit in the last 6 months... ss is completely screwed up.

Snow · « **Reply #16 on:** December 12, 2019, 05:35 »

They can boast about anything they want, what I'm seeing for the past couple of months is more positive reviews for AS and a lot more negative reviews for SS, be it from buyers or contributors.

I've read a few posts of people claiming that their AS earnings surpassed SS but always felt this could never be the case for me since they were so far apart. Lo and behold this month is the first time AS surpassed Shutterstock earnings. I've been doing this for almost a decade now and as far as I can remember this never happened before.

I feel SS is pushing away many contributors lately, why? who knows and who cares, we have to adapt to the situation and fast. For me that doesn't include more uploads for less money so they have stopped receiving my work.

On the other hand when I upload more to AS I earn more and that's the way it's supposed to be!

Pauws99 · « **Reply #17 on:** December 12, 2019, 08:46 »

This month AS is way ahead for more...combination of a bad month for SS and a good one from AS. This has happened before but by the end of the month SS has always beaten them.

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #18 on:** December 12, 2019, 12:06 »

Quote from: Pauws99 on December 12, 2019, 08:46

... but by the end of the month SS has always beaten them.

That's been the case for me too, a number of times. The real differentiator is that AS has nothing like the (for photos) $50-$120 SOD royalties and that makes it easy for SS to pull back ahead if those materialize. The volume has shrunk compared to several years ago, but they're still there.

This month, AS was ahead for about the first 9 or so days, but then they settled in their #2 spot.

Edited to add that this afternoon a $63 royalty appeared on SS to emphasize the point

Snow · « **Reply #19 on:** December 12, 2019, 12:55 »

Quote from: Jo Ann Snover on December 12, 2019, 12:06

Quote from: Pauws99 on December 12, 2019, 08:46
... but by the end of the month SS has always beaten them.

That's been the case for me too, a number of times. The real differentiator is that AS has nothing like the (for photos) $50-$120 SOD royalties and that makes it easy for SS to pull back ahead if those materialize. The volume has shrunk compared to several years ago, but they're still there.

This month, AS was ahead for about the first 9 or so days, but then they settled in their #2 spot.

A $70 custom sale dropped in at the beginning of the month for me at AS so they do seem to have them but this might have been a one-off, we will see. Whenever a big sale happens at SS the rest of the month pretty much dries up, hopefully this wont’t happen at AS.

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Author Topic: Shutterstock has paid $1 billion to contributors (Read 6313 times)

Shelma1

Pauws99

ouatedeP

Uncle Pete

pancaketom

Pauws99

Jo Ann Snover

pancaketom

jonbull

YadaYadaYada

jonbull

Snow

Jo Ann Snover

BalkanskiMacak

guy

jonbull

Snow

Pauws99

Jo Ann Snover

Snow

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