Quote from: Wilm on January 26, 2024, 09:14

Quote from: Mimi the Cat on January 21, 2024, 06:16

Well for the first time since 2011 looks like I'll not reach the minimum $35 payout for January.  Even subscription sales have died to zero for days just the occasional "single and other" sale.

In Jan 2018 I made over $318 and in 2019 $212 this Jan maybe $20.

Glad I don't rely on them anymore 

That's how it looks for me too. I have my minimum payout at $100, and it's quite possible that I won't reach that.

In January 2015 it was $793, with around 1,000 images. Today it's 1,350.

I reduced my payout to the $25 minimum you'd probably be best to do that too.

Yes, I could do that. I've got it all over the place at $100, and it won't make me a dime more if I lower it. Then I won't get a January payout from shutterstock - if it continues like this. I have to accept that.

I have to admit, though, that I'm pretty shocked at the download volume at shutterstock. January is also bad at AS, but shutterstock is really historically bad.

Quote from: cobalt on January 26, 2024, 11:52

I asked in German groups and there are still producers with around the same sales as the years before.

Perhaps this is mostly a problem in the US markets?

How are the Europeans here doing?

and only few/some folk in the US - many of us have seen little decrease - and there's still copious anti-SS venom polluting the waters of discussion

I think it's more than a few folk. Otherwise SS wouldn't have consistently dropped so much in the "Earnings Rating" column at the right of the page.

As for Shutterstock in January 2024 compared to January 2023. I'm receiving half the amount of money despite having the same number of downloads.

My last 12 months on SS

There is no problem with sale numbers, but with royalties� sale numbers are almost the same, but royalties are catastrophic, especially this month� �contributor fund� acted as some kind of bonus to balance those sad earnings�

maybe in the us ss is losing customers to adobe much faster than in europe?

I am from Europe. My sales numbers are steady, but revenue has dropped significantly. I think the most noticable change is that while most of my sales used to be subscriptions in the past, now I have way more "Single & Other" sales. And these used to be  good sales, but now they are usually mostly 0.10-0.17$, so they just don't bring any significant amount of money anymore.
I think SS has added some new plans for customers that aren't subscription plans, but earn us even less than subscriptions.


Also - I have not seen anyone mention this, so am I the only one? Shutterstock has been extremely laggy and slow for me for months now. It takes very long to load my dashboard and my catalogue manager is the worst, sometimes it takes up to 5 minutes for it to load, but most of the time it will not load at all and I have to refresh and wait another 5 minutes. It is super annoying. We have 2024, how is it still acceptable to wait for 5 minutes for a website to load? I do not know whether the problems also occur on the customers' end, but if it does I know it would be something to drive me away from a website if I was a customer.

If not happy be mature, stop complainning and quit the place. You will soon be able to go prompting the machines for cooking hamburgers at McD 

Quote from: DiscreetDuck on January 28, 2024, 03:22

If not happy be mature, stop complainning and quit the place.

As soon as you give me a good alternative how to earn my livelihood I will do that. So far no one was able to and who would quit their job without having an alternative?

We share the same goal, earn a livelihood. And I revised my expectations significantly downwards.
Realize that you kill yourself your own future (and other's) using AI. See you in a near future with more complaints, since I've got ideas about what this leads to, since AI will be soon autonomic. Of course, one could argue that if you don't do it yourself, others will do (Only sheep expect others to act like sheep too) However, I remain convinced that I made the right choice not to provide ANY AI generated fake photo IMAGE (Because yes, they are not photographs, even though the platforms sell them as such).
 
My portfolios are in no way polluted by these images and they will perhaps be spared during the big clean-up (who will come in his time, whether by deleting certain contributor accounts or by the eviction of their images by algorithms, which will lead to the same), since for me, a photograph is a subject (often living), a real place, an existing moment, even the memory of an event, the transmission for the future, the reflection of the organic, a skill resulting from long training, a subtle and sensitive testimony, unsuspected creativity, a personal visual interpretation of reality, but also imperfection, accident, unpredictable, and therefore charm.
 
Is this really the tool you want to use to secure your future?

Quote from: Her Ugliness on January 28, 2024, 02:33

I am from Europe. My sales numbers are steady, but revenue has dropped significantly. I think the most noticable change is that while most of my sales used to be subscriptions in the past, now I have way more "Single & Other" sales. And these used to be  good sales, but now they are usually mostly 0.10-0.17$, so they just don't bring any significant amount of money anymore.
I think SS has added some new plans for customers that aren't subscription plans, but earn us even less than subscriptions.


Also - I have not seen anyone mention this, so am I the only one? Shutterstock has been extremely laggy and slow for me for months now. It takes very long to load my dashboard and my catalogue manager is the worst, sometimes it takes up to 5 minutes for it to load, but most of the time it will not load at all and I have to refresh and wait another 5 minutes. It is super annoying. We have 2024, how is it still acceptable to wait for 5 minutes for a website to load? I do not know whether the problems also occur on the customers' end, but if it does I know it would be something to drive me away from a website if I was a customer.

If not happy be mature, stop complainning and quit the place. You will soon be able to go prompting the machines for cooking hamburgers at McD 

Of course, everyone noticed and discussed the SODs - this had been discussed already. No idea what shutterstock has done there again. Completely non-transparent.

For me, the peak was a day with a sub:SOD ratio of 1:12. And, yes, if the ratio between subs and SODs is roughly the same, the SODs often make less money than the subs.

But at the end of the day, we're talking about very small amounts anyways, since shutterstock hardly gets anything in anyway.

Quote from: Her Ugliness on January 28, 2024, 12:08

Quote from: DiscreetDuck on January 28, 2024, 06:55

Quote from: Her Ugliness on January 28, 2024, 03:42

Quote from: DiscreetDuck on January 28, 2024, 03:22

If not happy be mature, stop complainning and quit the place.

As soon as you give me a good alternative how to earn my livelihood I will do that. So far no one was able to and who would quit their job without having an alternative?

We share the same goal, earn a livelihood. And I revised my expectations significantly downwards.
Realize that you kill yourself your own future (and other's) using AI. See you in a near future with more complaints, since I've got ideas about what this leads to, since AI will be soon autonomic. Of course, one could argue that if you don't do it yourself, others will do (Only sheep expect others to act like sheep too) However, I remain convinced that I made the right choice not to provide ANY AI generated fake photo IMAGE (Because yes, they are not photographs, even though the platforms sell them as such).
 
My portfolios are in no way polluted by these images and they will perhaps be spared during the big clean-up (who will come in his time, whether by deleting certain contributor accounts or by the eviction of their images by algorithms, which will lead to the same), since for me, a photograph is a subject (often living), a real place, an existing moment, even the memory of an event, the transmission for the future, the reflection of the organic, a skill resulting from long training, a subtle and sensitive testimony, unsuspected creativity, a personal visual interpretation of reality, but also imperfection, accident, unpredictable, and therefore charm.
 
Is this really the tool you want to use to secure your future?

 I was under the impression this was a thread about Shutterstock and I am pretty sure I specifically talked about my Shutterstock earnings. Shutterstock does not even accept AI images.

So what in the world are you talking about...?

Omg, it's so low level here.
In any case, you did not respond to my message with anything intelligent, that would have surprised me.
Reread the topic, where is written "Adobe Stock" too... yes, the impression -you were under- was fake, as fake as the images you make the machines make by using AI.
 
Forget, have a lovely day, explore your keyboard typing your prompts, I will continue to enjoy exploring and promoting reality by using my eyes. 

You just don't make any sense.

Quote from: Mimi the Cat on January 21, 2024, 06:16

Well for the first time since 2011 looks like I'll not reach the minimum $35 payout for January.  Even subscription sales have died to zero for days just the occasional "single and other" sale.

In Jan 2018 I made over $318 and in 2019 $212 this Jan maybe $20.

Glad I don't rely on them anymore 

There is still time until the end of the month; there is a high probability that you will have sales. 

One day left of the month and have made $24.74

If I get the same sales as I did today (1 SOD for $0.10) then I won't make it 

Quote from: blvdone on January 17, 2024, 02:45

So far this month in January 2024.  This is sad.  It's on pace for only 1/2 the January 2023 sales.  Shutterstock used to be the King.  Whatever gone wrong there. 
Shutterstock used to pay us $0.38 minimum for subscription sale like Adobe Stock does.  Since they introduced wonderful $0.10 photo sub commission, contributor enthusiasm seem eroded.  Probably Shutterstock nowadays doesn't get as many quality photos or videos as Adobe Stock does.  They still own Pond5 now.  So, they get the best stock videos on Pond5.  But for the photos, Adobe Stock is the King now, no question.  They totally had a wrong approach toward contributors belittling us while Adobe Stock is trying to work with us.  Big mistake.

Quote from: blvdone on January 13, 2024, 09:28

So, it took 10 years to get 6,500 photos on Adobe Stock, but took only 3 months to add 3,000 AI generated photos on Adobe Stock.  $120 x 3 months Midjourney cost is very well spent.  I'll make way more than $120 in AI photo sales this month.  Also, I'm lucky I got 3,000 AI photos accepted before the mass rejection trend started.

Sure, you feel so sorry you can't flood SS with tons of AI images you get from Midjourney? since you are one of the human tools of it.
You know what, Well, that's sounds perfect to me! 

They do a "Big mistake"?, hem, maybe you actually do also, who knows... future will say it 

You sound like a bitter old man.  Cheer up!!  😂😂