Author Topic: Shutterstock just became iStock 2.0 (Read 149608 times)

Uncle Pete · « **Reply #775 on:** June 12, 2020, 09:39 »

Quote from: gnirtS on June 11, 2020, 15:13

Quote from: pics2 on June 11, 2020, 09:07
It looks like the earnings of the big players will not drop that much.

They're going to get hit hard just like the others. For most people selling images, the majority of sales are subs so moving from 0.38 down to an average of 0.2 or 0.12 is going to lose a chunk of money no matter how big you are.
The slight increases for the rarely sold other licences are unlikely to cover the huge drop from subs.

Sorry Richard, not so, the rarely sold licenses have dropped in half for me as well. Currently everything is about 50%, I'll give it a month and see what that number turns out to be, and after two months again, a longer period bit of observing. I was at 60% drop, but some higher subs came in.

Doesn't matter if it turns out to be 30% less, it's still less and the 10-12-14¢ subs are an insult on top of the already under rewarded commissions.

stockmarketer · « **Reply #776 on:** June 12, 2020, 09:45 »

I was bracing for the worst when I saw the announcement, but so far, my June is looking better than June 2019. Yes, the .10 subs are awful, but I'm also seeing a high number of subs well over the usual .38 -- many over 1.00. Video sales got off to a slow start, but now they're coming in at a nice pace. And the dreaded 1.50 Clip Pack commissions are nowhere to be seen. I'm seeing quite a few Clip Pack sales over 20.00 which rarely happened prior to the change. So a mixed bag overall, but all in all it appears to be a net positive for my port. Everyone's mileage will vary, of course.

Still not looking forward to Jan 2021. The reset is an insult and needs to be changed.

Uncle Pete · « **Reply #777 on:** June 12, 2020, 09:55 »

Quote from: stockmarketer on June 12, 2020, 09:45

I was bracing for the worst when I saw the announcement, but so far, my June is looking better than June 2019. Yes, the .10 subs are awful, but I'm also seeing a high number of subs well over the usual .38 -- many over 1.00. Video sales got off to a slow start, but now they're coming in at a nice pace. And the dreaded 1.50 Clip Pack commissions are nowhere to be seen. I'm seeing quite a few Clip Pack sales over 20.00 which rarely happened prior to the change. So a mixed bag overall, but all in all it appears to be a net positive for my port. Everyone's mileage will vary, of course.

Still not looking forward to Jan 2021. The reset is an insult and needs to be changed.

I should have included, I have NO video on SS. I went exclusive on P5 when the $1.25 video downloads started.

Also the months of 2020 include no ELs which can throw off numbers in a big way. Mine as listed are Subs, OD and SO.

Maybe your images will hold up better against the cuts. I know mine are pretty "stock".

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #778 on:** June 12, 2020, 11:05 »

Quote from: reisegraf on June 12, 2020, 06:03

... But my problem is, if I would boycott SS, I would have to do the same with...

I don't think that's the right way to look at this. It isn't just about some cents/download absolute number and above you stay, below you go.

If you left 123rf because their sales were rubbish, that'd be a fine reason. Or if you left some other agency because they wouldn't let you opt out of partnerships and some of those were a bad deal, that'd also be a fine reason.

The reason to consider boycotting Shutterstock is that they suddenly and drastically changed the portion of the buyers' money they keep and reduced the share you get. (For video producers, I think the big hit will come in January when everyone goes back to the basic level and their percentages drop).

Not only is that cutting into your income now, it's increasing the chances other agencies will follow suit, reducing your income everywhere.

Shutterstock's annual pay-up-front subscription, a new and even more heavily discounted subscription, reduced the theoretical minimum cost for the buyer to 22 cents an image. To enable this price cut they needed to do something about royalties or risk loosing up to $118 per month on each 750/month subscription. Looking at all the 10¢ downloads in people's royalty charts, I'd say those are popular options.

If those become the price point to compete with, other agencies will eventually be tempted to compete on price - if we don't hurt Shutterstock with no new uploads and portfolios leaving.

At the very least, stop uploading and send your new work elsewhere while you convince yourself that it is not in your longterm interest to just take whatever shrinking piece of the pie Shutterstock decides to let you have.

chrisbradshaw · « **Reply #779 on:** June 12, 2020, 12:32 »

I had seen a link to a counter tool that was updating the total image count at Shutterstock during this movement, but I can't find it again. Is anyone tracking the changes to their overall image count? I've been doing it sporadically for about a week and it's only decreased by a little over a million so far (out of 324 million).

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #780 on:** June 12, 2020, 13:35 »

Quote from: chrisbradshaw on June 12, 2020, 12:32

I had seen a link to a counter tool that was updating the total image count at Shutterstock during this movement, but I can't find it again. Is anyone tracking the changes to their overall image count? I've been doing it sporadically for about a week and it's only decreased by a little over a million so far (out of 324 million).

Was it this one?

http://shuttercounter.ddns.net/

There's also a google sheet which automatically updates and has charts (click at the bottom)

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Sx80IDLCr0-1_ie1a17Rtm4m9fgUwglaxHdyNy2lDCc/edit?usp=sharing

reisegraf · « **Reply #781 on:** June 13, 2020, 04:03 »

Quote from: Jo Ann Snover on June 12, 2020, 11:05

Quote from: reisegraf on June 12, 2020, 06:03
... But my problem is, if I would boycott SS, I would have to do the same with...

I don't think that's the right way to look at this. It isn't just about some cents/download absolute number and above you stay, below you go.

If you left 123rf because their sales were rubbish, that'd be a fine reason. Or if you left some other agency because they wouldn't let you opt out of partnerships and some of those were a bad deal, that'd also be a fine reason.

The reason to consider boycotting Shutterstock is that they suddenly and drastically changed the portion of the buyers' money they keep and reduced the share you get. (For video producers, I think the big hit will come in January when everyone goes back to the basic level and their percentages drop).

Not only is that cutting into your income now, it's increasing the chances other agencies will follow suit, reducing your income everywhere.

Shutterstock's annual pay-up-front subscription, a new and even more heavily discounted subscription, reduced the theoretical minimum cost for the buyer to 22 cents an image. To enable this price cut they needed to do something about royalties or risk loosing up to $118 per month on each 750/month subscription. Looking at all the 10¢ downloads in people's royalty charts, I'd say those are popular options.

If those become the price point to compete with, other agencies will eventually be tempted to compete on price - if we don't hurt Shutterstock with no new uploads and portfolios leaving.

At the very least, stop uploading and send your new work elsewhere while you convince yourself that it is not in your longterm interest to just take whatever shrinking piece of the pie Shutterstock decides to let you have.

thanks a lot jo ann for your valuable feedback!
...and yes, I'm definitely thinking about it and at the end of the month I'll decide how to proceed...

Mir · « **Reply #782 on:** June 13, 2020, 06:43 »

I am looking at the new submissions daily from the beginning of June and it seems the quality is mostly quite bad. I wonder if it is like this just now or was it like that before the change.
Not to mention the many similar images, just one example is oak logo in fresh content

miketravels · « **Reply #783 on:** June 15, 2020, 03:03 »

Mines now done. Hopefully enough people overall will do it to make them care.

Sent from my ONEPLUS A6013 using Tapatalk

m · « **Reply #784 on:** June 15, 2020, 05:55 »

Quote from: Pixart on June 09, 2020, 12:38

Any takers?

https://www.glassdoor.ca/Reviews/Shutterstock-Reviews-E270840.htm

It seems like shutterstock cares about what goes on on glassdoor. lot of honest reviews from submitters would be a good idea.

NeonRobot · « **Reply #785 on:** June 17, 2020, 01:18 »

I wonder who's gonna be iStock v3.0?

YadaYadaYada · « **Reply #786 on:** June 18, 2020, 16:09 »

Quote from: Snow on May 26, 2020, 10:43

Amazing, they are going from bad to worse and seem to be loving it!

Hard to be worse than iStock but Shutter is trying. This is the worst but not the lowest paying. How does anybody stay with either of them?

duns123 · « **Reply #787 on:** April 18, 2021, 06:49 »

Quote from: buddy s on May 27, 2020, 11:22

Long time lurker, first time poster.

While I am as PISSED at everyone else at how this came across, I'm surprised that no one is talking about the real enemy.

For years, photographers have been dumping all kinds of microstock onto free sites like Pexels, Unsplash, and Pixabay all either to stroke their gigantic egos or to enter the lottery that someone will miraculously come across their portfolio and hire them for a professional gig (which happens 0.000001% of the time).

I know a ton of small business owners. NO ONE goes to Shutterstock or Adobe or iStock anymore. They all go to these sites and download "free images".

Adding insult to injury, Canva has bought up Pixabay and Pexels and is now SELLING the images those photographers gave them for FREE. Contributors don't get 10 cents, they get jack sh*t.

Again, I'm not absolving Shutterstock (or iStock before it) from blame here nor making apologies for them. But if you know someone who's contributing to one of those free sites, tell them to STOP. They are taking money out of our pockets just as bad as Shutterstock is, maybe worse.

This is the problem but users like small businesses of images MUST learn and realise that photos often cost money for locations, models, and equipment. After all, how would such users like it if people expected to get THEiR product or service they were trying to promote for FREE?
These photographers must be either rich enough (wealthy mummy or daddy) to give some of their photos away or very naive to think the internet will get them paid gigs because it won't. As soon as people find out their work is being offered for free on the net, they may get paid little if anything for those gigs.

Pacesetter · « **Reply #788 on:** April 18, 2021, 07:43 »

Shutterstock is way worse now than it ever was pre or post June 2020. Sales volume and RPD in 2021 have fallen hard with no sign of recovery.

Mimi the Cat · « **Reply #789 on:** April 18, 2021, 22:49 »

Quote from: NeonRobot on June 17, 2020, 01:18

I wonder who's gonna be iStock v3.0?

Fast forward to April 2021 and Adobe have just thrown their hat in the ring for that title

Pauws99 · « **Reply #790 on:** April 19, 2021, 00:52 »

Quote from: Bad Robot on April 18, 2021, 22:49

Quote from: NeonRobot on June 17, 2020, 01:18
I wonder who's gonna be iStock v3.0?

Fast forward to April 2021 and Adobe have just thrown their hat in the ring for that title

Why do you say that?

Firn · « **Reply #791 on:** April 19, 2021, 01:55 »

Quote from: Pauws99 on April 19, 2021, 00:52

Quote from: Bad Robot on April 18, 2021, 22:49
Quote from: NeonRobot on June 17, 2020, 01:18
I wonder who's gonna be iStock v3.0?

Fast forward to April 2021 and Adobe have just thrown their hat in the ring for that title
Why do you say that?

They are now offering an unlimited subscription plan where customers can download the whole database in a day. (But Adobe 'trusts' those customers to not do that

)
Contributors get 33% of the revenue - If a customer downloads 1.000 images in a month, each individual contributor who had an image downloaded with that plan gets 1/30 (since it's calculated per day) of 1/1.000 of 33% of what Adobe charges for a plan. If a customer downloads 1.000.000 images in a month, contributors get 1/30 of 1/1.000.000 of 33%. (Which might be something in the 0.000X$ range. We don't know the prices for these plans, as Adobe keeps them a secret, so we have no starting number to calculate with.)
So, the more a customer downloads with a plan (while paying the same, regardless of whether they download one image or one million images) , the less contributors get, while Adobe always keeps 67% of what the customer paid for the plan.

It's a horrible greedy system where Adobe always comes out with a fixed revenue per sold plan, while contributors get less the more images are downloaded.

dirkr · « **Reply #792 on:** April 19, 2021, 02:04 »

plus all those downloads come with an extended license included...

Mimi the Cat · « **Reply #793 on:** April 19, 2021, 03:50 »

Quote from: Pauws99 on April 19, 2021, 00:52

Quote from: Bad Robot on April 18, 2021, 22:49
Quote from: NeonRobot on June 17, 2020, 01:18
I wonder who's gonna be iStock v3.0?

Fast forward to April 2021 and Adobe have just thrown their hat in the ring for that title
Why do you say that?

https://www.microstockgroup.com/fotolia-com/adobe-stock-announcing-pro-edition-for-creative-cloud-for-teams-and-enterprises/msg563238/?topicseen#new

Uncle Pete · « **Reply #794 on:** November 29, 2021, 17:05 »

Quote from: Pixart on June 08, 2020, 14:05

Back to about 5 pages ago when we were talking about earnings....

At the end of the quarter SS reported earnings and $300M in the bank resulting in dividend payout of .17 per share.

- I don't know how to find how many shares there are though! Anyone know the number of shares in SS? Multiply the shares by .17 and we know how much they paid ind dividends. Then we will know what they currently have for cash.

When the first quarter results were stated, the effects of the pandemic had barely been felt. There wasn't much of a shift in their earnings. Really, a much higher impact should be reported in the 2nd quarter as we are still very much in recovery.

Edited to add: Pandemic in America started mid-March. Businesses that cancelled subscriptions wouldn't even be evident in first quarter earnings report! This will be a bad quarter.

Note - they will report earnings again at the end of this month, they surely had less income but it is also offset by lower royalties.

Content is starting to disappear, but what is happening to the content supply chain? Can we see an effect yet on the numbers of new uploads? I'm not sure how many days uploads were in pending at end of May, are they still working through the system.

I like the movement to suspend accounts on June 15, but WE REALLY SHOULD HAVE OUR CONTENT DISABLED AT MONTH END WHEN THEY REPORT THEIR NUMBERS TO SHAREHOLDERS. It would be the first time the shareholders would see diminishing assets.

Cleaning an old laptop over Thanksgiving, I found this: (yes I know old thread, but for a change I'm on topic?)

Microstock sees its first major setback in 6 years and here is why

Posted: 25 Jul 2013 11:56 AM PDT
You might have noticed huge amounts of images being removed from micro subscription sites such as Shutterstock.com, Fotolia.com, Dreamstime.com etc. You might also have noticed that Shutterstock’s stock have dropped more than 12% over the past week. (Link.) Perhaps you have also seen the public statement that GettyImages made about Yuri Arcurs and PeopleImages.com going exclusive.

Yuri Arcurs

MicrostockGroup Sponsors

Author Topic: Shutterstock just became iStock 2.0 (Read 149608 times)

Uncle Pete

stockmarketer

Uncle Pete

Jo Ann Snover

chrisbradshaw

Jo Ann Snover

reisegraf

Mir

miketravels

m

NeonRobot

YadaYadaYada

duns123

Pacesetter

Mimi the Cat

Pauws99

Firn

dirkr

Mimi the Cat

Uncle Pete

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