Author Topic: Shutterstock just became iStock 2.0 (Read 149711 times)

PaulieWalnuts · « **Reply #675 on:** June 04, 2020, 14:19 »

Quote from: Jo Ann Snover on June 04, 2020, 13:15

Quote from: Smithore on June 04, 2020, 13:05
There's something strange, i've opt out for 7000+ photos and 500+ video selling, when i'm consulting my dashboard I can see now there is still 970 photos in my portfolio, that's means nothing !!!!
Contributors who have opted out, do you encountering the same issue ?

Yes. My portfolio count went down in fits and starts and finally reached zero. I also saw that when the count on the screen you showed was one number, if you clicked on the portfolio link right there it'd show a different number.

It'll all go to zero shortly

So when you disable, are the files deleted? My portfolio now shows 0 files. Not that I care if they're deleted. Just curious.

obj owl · « **Reply #676 on:** June 04, 2020, 14:21 »

Quote from: PaulieWalnuts on June 04, 2020, 14:19

Quote from: Jo Ann Snover on June 04, 2020, 13:15
Quote from: Smithore on June 04, 2020, 13:05
There's something strange, i've opt out for 7000+ photos and 500+ video selling, when i'm consulting my dashboard I can see now there is still 970 photos in my portfolio, that's means nothing !!!!
Contributors who have opted out, do you encountering the same issue ?

Yes. My portfolio count went down in fits and starts and finally reached zero. I also saw that when the count on the screen you showed was one number, if you clicked on the portfolio link right there it'd show a different number.

It'll all go to zero shortly

So when you disable, are the files deleted? My portfolio now shows 0 files. Not that I care if they're deleted. Just curious.

No you can turn it on just as quick as you turned it off.

aitor · « **Reply #677 on:** June 04, 2020, 14:29 »

They are going to have a lot of disk space for content offline. Perhaps in the future they force us to delete them.

Enviado desde mi AGS2-W09 mediante Tapatalk

Smithore · « **Reply #678 on:** June 04, 2020, 16:33 »

Quote

So when you disable, are the files deleted? My portfolio now shows 0 files. Not that I care if they're deleted. Just curious.

I guess not, it can takes also many hours for the files appear again, i just hope tomorrow i can turn it off again.

cobalt · « **Reply #679 on:** June 04, 2020, 16:52 »

Quote from: gnirtS on June 04, 2020, 04:24

Their stock has gone up slightly.
Not a shock as all the changes directly benefit the share holders.

No, because it is the last day of record to get the dividend. Once that is paid out middle of June the stock will self correct and drop.

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #680 on:** June 04, 2020, 16:59 »

Quote from: PaulieWalnuts on June 04, 2020, 14:19

Quote from: Jo Ann Snover on June 04, 2020, 13:15
Quote from: Smithore on June 04, 2020, 13:05
There's something strange, i've opt out for 7000+ photos and 500+ video selling, when i'm consulting my dashboard I can see now there is still 970 photos in my portfolio, that's means nothing !!!!
Contributors who have opted out, do you encountering the same issue ?

Yes. My portfolio count went down in fits and starts and finally reached zero. I also saw that when the count on the screen you showed was one number, if you clicked on the portfolio link right there it'd show a different number.

It'll all go to zero shortly

So when you disable, are the files deleted? My portfolio now shows 0 files. Not that I care if they're deleted. Just curious.

When I returned to being an independent in 2011, I turned the portfolio back on and all the undeleted images were still there.

Right now, for all the sets I had in the catalog manager, I can select an image, click the edit pencil and up comes the watermarked image with all the metadata for me to edit, so I am fairly sure the data is all still in the database

EIPHOTO · « **Reply #681 on:** June 04, 2020, 17:11 »

So when you opt of sales.. can you still view the date of what images sold month by month and the all the sets in the catalogue manager with the earning amounts and contents of each set? Or when you opt out of sales is everything gone?

Anyone know?

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #682 on:** June 04, 2020, 17:17 »

Quote from: EIPHOTO on June 04, 2020, 17:11

So when you opt of sales.. can you still view the date of what images sold month by month and the all the sets in the catalogue manager with the earning amounts and contents of each set? Or when you opt out of sales is everything gone?

Anyone know?

I've checked the catalog manager earnings stats for a few of my sets and it all looks intact. From the contributor home page, I can still see the top performers list with earnings and download numbers.

The only thing that went away is the top keywords for downloading an image in the top performers list - which is a shame as that had lots of great insight.

Not sure if I have all my images in one set or another, but I can't add anything as the main display of all images has nothing.

I would advise anyone about to delete who doesn't have sets to select all their images and put them in a set (and I'm not sure if you can do a select all across multiple pages; obviously can't test that out now

)

EIPHOTO · « **Reply #683 on:** June 04, 2020, 17:40 »

Thank you for the reply. Do you know if one can still go to earnings summary and see the daily stats and what was used day by day and month by month for each year? Will it still how the thumbnail of each image and show what they earned on each particular day?

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #684 on:** June 04, 2020, 18:42 »

Quote from: EIPHOTO on June 04, 2020, 17:40

Thank you for the reply. Do you know if one can still go to earnings summary and see the daily stats and what was used day by day and month by month for each year? Will it still how the thumbnail of each image and show what they earned on each particular day?

Yes - as long as you are just disabling the sales of your portfolio, all that past information remains

Here is an embarrassing earnings page I just took a snapshot of from November 2005 (when I was relatively new there)

EIPHOTO · « **Reply #685 on:** June 04, 2020, 19:06 »

Thank You for sharing that information. Someone previously said all that past info and data would be gone but I can see that it still remains.

Zalee · « **Reply #686 on:** June 04, 2020, 20:59 »

Quote from: Jo Ann Snover on June 04, 2020, 12:50

Shutterstock has added a post to their Facebook account this morning saying, among other things "we understand your frustrations" and "your feedback is very important to us"

Bollocks

https://www.facebook.com/pg/Shutterstock/posts/?ref=page_internal

I've given them my feedback

Want to add yours?

Thanks Jo Ann, I have left a comment also. I've also disabled my port, even though it's very small some of my images are top images for certain searches. I will concentrate on other agencies. I'm so sad to see Shutterstock do this, I thought they were one of the better behaved agencies

gnirtS · « **Reply #687 on:** June 04, 2020, 21:22 »

Quote from: Justanotherphotographer on June 04, 2020, 13:50

Quote from: gnirtS on June 04, 2020, 13:28
People tried giving feedback - they ended up banned or accounts ceased!
Or blocked on twitter. Or blocked on facebook.
Or posted in that 170 page thread they keep deleting posts from. Or the other threads elsewhere in the forum they're ignoring.

They know *exactly* how bad this would be way way ahead of time.

They did, but equally their underhandedness has actually worked out pretty well for them.

Even the people really outraged are complaining about SS taking 85% of royalties (nope, minimum 85% in that tier, probably much more) or people in higher tiers complaining that their income has dropped 50% (nope SS has cleverly bought this in half way through the year, your income will be dropping a lot more over the whole calendar year thanks to that January reset).

All this is far too in the weeds to explain to customers and that's the beauty of it.

Most infuriating thing about this is the dishonesty with regards to the percentage and the (unspeakably cruel) January reset. There's no logical reason for the reset other than masking how much you are actually loosing. There is no reason not to have a rolling 12 month tier other than that.

Now I've actually got some data I think the immediate change to sub and other prices are going to affect peoples income more than the January reset. We focused on the wrong thing.
Even before that most people are down to 0.1 to 0.17 or so for a sub.
In January, that'll just mean a few more .1 instead of .12s etc.
So although the reset makes things worse, the most damaging policy is already with us.

33 sales today. All subs. Average RPD $0.13 from level 5.

Most people's income for images is made up majority through subs.

wordplanet · « **Reply #688 on:** June 05, 2020, 00:00 »

Quote from: Smithore on June 04, 2020, 13:05

There's something strange, i've opt out for 7000+ photos and 500+ video selling, when i'm consulting my dashboard I can see now there is still 970 photos in my portfolio, that's means nothing !!!!
Contributors who have opted out, do you encountering the same issue ?

Mine shows 0. I did it May 29 or 30 & it took until Monday to show 0.

wordplanet · « **Reply #689 on:** June 05, 2020, 00:11 »

Quote from: gnirtS on June 04, 2020, 21:22

Quote from: Justanotherphotographer on June 04, 2020, 13:50
Quote from: gnirtS on June 04, 2020, 13:28
People tried giving feedback - they ended up banned or accounts ceased!
Or blocked on twitter. Or blocked on facebook.
Or posted in that 170 page thread they keep deleting posts from. Or the other threads elsewhere in the forum they're ignoring.

They know *exactly* how bad this would be way way ahead of time.

They did, but equally their underhandedness has actually worked out pretty well for them.

Even the people really outraged are complaining about SS taking 85% of royalties (nope, minimum 85% in that tier, probably much more) or people in higher tiers complaining that their income has dropped 50% (nope SS has cleverly bought this in half way through the year, your income will be dropping a lot more over the whole calendar year thanks to that January reset).

All this is far too in the weeds to explain to customers and that's the beauty of it.

Most infuriating thing about this is the dishonesty with regards to the percentage and the (unspeakably cruel) January reset. There's no logical reason for the reset other than masking how much you are actually loosing. There is no reason not to have a rolling 12 month tier other than that.

Now I've actually got some data I think the immediate change to sub and other prices are going to affect peoples income more than the January reset. We focused on the wrong thing.
Even before that most people are down to 0.1 to 0.17 or so for a sub.
In January, that'll just mean a few more .1 instead of .12s etc.
So although the reset makes things worse, the most damaging policy is already with us.

33 sales today. All subs. Average RPD $0.13 from level 5.

Most people's income for images is made up majority through subs.

Yep, as I suspected the level wouldn't make much difference when most sales are a percentage of $0.22 (750 dl subs). When they dropped the guaranteed $28 for ELs and moved the bar to 500,000 from 250,000 copies, even with my then small portfolio (about 300 files at the time) I saw my income drop markedly and I wasn't getting a ton of ELs but with a portfolio of mostly travel images, I was getting ELs for books and magazines, I got fewer and they dropped to $14-20 and other book and magazine uses became $0.36 subs - so with this latest move I knew it would just be the kiss of death. All ss had going for them was volume, but without the old ELs it was harder to see a decent return - and with most dls projected to earn $0.10 volume will never be great enough.

wordplanet · « **Reply #690 on:** June 05, 2020, 00:12 »

Quote from: gnirtS on June 04, 2020, 00:39

https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/image-representation-greed-that-company-has-1748302739

Whoever got that accepted, well done!
Better yet, extra marks for somehow getting "fuck you" accepted as a keyword.

Not bothered hiding the uploading ID because i dont think he cares - he currently has 1 file online and its that!

asia_sko is my new hero (heroine?)

wordplanet · « **Reply #691 on:** June 05, 2020, 00:18 »

Joann glad you posted that. I copied about 10-15 pages of earnings and meant to go back and copy another 10-15 pages every day before they disappear.

PS your old sales are far less embarrassing than mine LOL.

Snow · « **Reply #692 on:** June 05, 2020, 01:53 »

Quote from: Jo Ann Snover on June 04, 2020, 17:17

Quote from: EIPHOTO on June 04, 2020, 17:11
So when you opt of sales.. can you still view the date of what images sold month by month and the all the sets in the catalogue manager with the earning amounts and contents of each set? Or when you opt out of sales is everything gone?

Anyone know?

I've checked the catalog manager earnings stats for a few of my sets and it all looks intact. From the contributor home page, I can still see the top performers list with earnings and download numbers.

The only thing that went away is the top keywords for downloading an image in the top performers list - which is a shame as that had lots of great insight.

Not sure if I have all my images in one set or another, but I can't add anything as the main display of all images has nothing.

I would advise anyone about to delete who doesn't have sets to select all their images and put them in a set (and I'm not sure if you can do a select all across multiple pages; obviously can't test that out now )

I already disabled my video portfolio before June but was going to leave my image portfolio up until Jan 2021. I figured being at level 4 I would be getting the same $0.38 subs, boy was I wrong!
I also noticed I had quite a few regular sellers that were not yet on Adobe and went trough those yesterday. My current earnings are close $35 and as soon as they hit $35 I will lower my payout settings to minimum and also disable my portfolio.
I will also take your advise in creating a set that holds all my images, thanks for the heads-up!

I am in a pretty bad situation right now since unlike others Adobe never took off for me, only slightly and even seems to go down now as well after SS change. Somehow I always get the feeling that these agencies are working together, especially SS and AS since many report good sales at one agency while it’s the opposite for others, then the next month it’s reversed. I’m hoping I’m wrong and this will change in the near future, if not then Ill probably leave Microstock altogether $:-\$

Take care peeps!

Josephine · « **Reply #693 on:** June 05, 2020, 02:35 »

Many contributors are praising Adobe. What about if Adobe just follows SS?
In my oppinion this is very likely.

pics2 · « **Reply #694 on:** June 05, 2020, 03:02 »

Quote from: Josephine on June 05, 2020, 02:35

Many contributors are praising Adobe. What about if Adobe just follows SS?
In my oppinion this is very likely.

Unfortunately, even at this level and at this time when Adobe are considered more fair to contributors, the income I get from them is not enough to compensate for SS loses. This is unsustainable business now. It just doesn't matter for me anymore what Adobe does, they are not going to take over SS customers. SS is not shutting down, they screwed contributors,there won't be much customer migration because they are not affected. Maybe some of them will hear about our problems and actually care about it, maybe 10% no more.
One more thing is very important - Adobe and the others are not ready to take over the leadership in the industry. All these years all these agencies were parasitizing on SS. In a way that contributors produce their content primarily for SS, because SS was their biggest earner, and then they send already made content to other agencies to earn some extra money. Without SS the business was not sustainable. So, we are relying on these parasites now, that is not good position for us at all. They are used to be parasites, they have parasites mentality and it can't be changed easily.

Snow · « **Reply #695 on:** June 05, 2020, 03:26 »

Yeah I'm afraid you both have good points. The silence from Adobe is worrying. Reviews are taking way too long, sales are down (at least for me) and all this seems to happen in line with SS changes.

I think if we want to survive in this market we'll have to start thinking about creating our own platform since there's no other option left anymore.

Is symbiostock still a good option? now that we have many more on our side (unlike DPC) it could take off this time no? Or maybe Pixels.com licensing?

MicroVet · « **Reply #696 on:** June 05, 2020, 03:27 »

I really hope that Adobe would make a move, namely accepting editorial photos and videos which are a huge part of my SS income and other agencies and is a very large market.

Unfortunately I don't know how willing is Adobe to make a move because that would empower the contributors and give us a sense that collective actions and pressure does make a difference.

So, in the short term Adobe may see this as a good move to get a greater market share but in the long term the sense of power and unity the contributors gained could mean trouble for them.

After all we're talking about big capitalists whose worst nightmare is having the workers united. As an example, I know a story of a big farmer that decided to pay more to his workers because people were little more than slaves in the region. He ended up never having a crop after that because the other farmers burnt down all his crops fearing that their workers would start demanding better payment. That farmer had to leave the region.

So, as much as I would like to see Adobe make a move, the truth is Free Market and competition is an illusion and things are always under control and well orchestrated by the big players. At least in my country Free Market meant the establishment of Cartels that act as monopolies.

Snow · « **Reply #697 on:** June 05, 2020, 03:36 »

Quote from: MicroVet on June 05, 2020, 03:27

I really hope that Adobe would make a move, namely accepting editorial photos and videos which are a huge part of my SS income and other agencies and is a very large market.

Unfortunately I don't know how willing is Adobe to make a move because that would empower the contributors and give us a sense that collective actions and pressure does make a difference.

So, in the short term Adobe may see this as a good move to get a greater market share but in the long term the sense of power and unity the contributors gained could mean trouble for them.

After all we're talking about big capitalists whose worst nightmare is having the workers united. As an example, I know a story of a big farmer that decided to pay more to his workers because people were little more than slaves in the region. He ended up never having a crop after that because the other farmers burnt down all his crops fearing that their workers would start demanding better payment. That farmer had to leave the region.

So, as much as I would like to see Adobe make a move, the truth is Free Market and competition is an illusion and things are always under control and well orchestrated by the big players. At least in my country Free Market meant the establishment of Cartels that act as monopolies.

I haven't even thought about that, very good point and makes a lot of sense! This would explain the silence.

Firn · « **Reply #698 on:** June 05, 2020, 03:55 »

Quote from: Josephine on June 05, 2020, 02:35

Many contributors are praising Adobe. What about if Adobe just follows SS?
In my oppinion this is very likely.

I was having a similar thought. We are all focusing on Adobe, telling other contributors to go there, telling customers to buy from there and in 2 or 3 years Adobe might bite us in the a** as thanks and lower their royalities the same way.

However, one reason why I have high hopes that this will not happen is that Adobe, most of all, is a softwear developing company and only secondary a stock site. And imagine what happened if they pissed of contributors the way Shutterstock is doing now? We photographers and illustrators are not just contributors for Adobe, we are also customers for their softwear! So, by following SS, Adobe would piss of both their microstock contributors and their softwear customers at the same time and would have much more to lose. That would be a really stupid move. It's one thing to say "I don't agree with what SS is doing, I will pass on all possible earnings I get from them", because that actually is a sacrifice on the contributors end. One many are not willing to take, especially the ones who depend on their microstock earnings. However, I would not find it too hard to say "I don't agree with what Adobe is doing, I will not purchase their products anymore". (Okay, I am getting their softwear for free for submitting to them, but not all contributors are)
There are decent alternatives out there, many of them even cheaper than Adobe and the only sacrifice I would have to make would be to get used to a different softwear interface. I would rather not have to do it, but it would not be a sacrifice comparable to deliberately accepting a loss in income like it is with closing your SS account.

So, if someone from Adobe is reading this: Think really hard whether you want to piss of your contributors, who are also your customers before you ever consider following in SS's footsteps.

Josephine · « **Reply #699 on:** June 05, 2020, 04:07 »

The coronavirus is hitting the world economy... as well as the Microstock companies. And this is the reaction. The golden times are gone for EVERYBODY not only the Microstockers.

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Author Topic: Shutterstock just became iStock 2.0 (Read 149711 times)

PaulieWalnuts

obj owl

aitor

Smithore

cobalt

Jo Ann Snover

EIPHOTO

Jo Ann Snover

EIPHOTO

Jo Ann Snover

EIPHOTO

Zalee

gnirtS

wordplanet

wordplanet

wordplanet

wordplanet

Snow

Josephine

pics2

Snow

MicroVet

Snow

Firn

Josephine

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