Chris_M_Rabe

I think I get why that subscription sale for $43 appeared. It was just below my payout amount - so the only way I could get a payout for it, would be too re-enable my images. Or simply lower my payout amount - which is what I did. Did anybody else get this kind of high value sale? Am I just creating conspiracies in my head?

I'm not sure I get that whole gay theory above this post .... Anyway, I disabled my image sales as soon as I had my payout after this was all announced. Couple of days ago I got a "subscription" sale for $43? What the hell is that about?

Dreamstime did do some increase after Shutterstock cut, but not sure how long that is for. Now a full month since disabling here. My sales on DT seem to have improved this month. AS sales are rubbish like always for me. But I think I have decided to pull from microstock entirely, and probably just focus on Alamy. Just less time managing photos.

If anything, it shows that their pricing model was wonky form the start, with packs costing customers way too little for what they got - and now when they try to change the structure, it becomes evident that they can't create much range in payouts, and everyone gets peanuts. I have pulled out of SS, and will be pulling out of Adobe and Dreamstime too.

You know, I wasn't sure how long they had been around. I swapped my site to them, because cost of using one of the better portfolio sites like photodeck wasn't making much sense for me. It's fine for that purpose - but I was wondering if I'd ever see a sale. Am starting to find it's limited management interface rather frustrating in comparison to photodeck though, where I could manage everything through lightroom. On topic - my images here still disabled. Not sure I will ever re-enable them. It's obvious SS don't care. No comms, no indication of any sort they will relent. I only hope that more and more remove their images - if images here dry up, people will shop somewhere else. I just wish Adobe would make managing images and keywords a LOT better - I hate their system.

For those who are simply not going to add new images - what do you hope this will achieve? They will still have all your existing images to make money off, so will keep going as they are...

The current microstock model was never going to last. Too cheap to the customer, and now approaching point where they can't really take much more away form the contributor. Entire industry needs a reboot, with some actual thought going into strategy, rather than just selling cheap to get customers in, so that everyone form contributor to customer are satisfied.

So, I disabled images for sale on Sunday. I thought I would still be able to manage images, but nothing show sin catalog manager? Do they completely remove images when doing this, or is this nromal, and if I re-enable (if they stop being butts), will they be available again? Currently going through some of my older processed images and "Yikes", I can't believe some of the crap I have put up in past.

My photos will remain disabled then.

No, read a couple of posts above you - it's not activated yet

Images removed from sale. Not deleted. Will see how things play out.

Only images need to be exclusive, not you as an artist. So whatever images you put there must be exclusive, but you can continue to submit other images to other agencies.

I am sure they will come back and say, "we have heard you, and are changing it to rolling total for past 12 months. See we are awesome", when that was probably their plan all along. Make drastic changes, then make it look as if giving in, when in fact people will still be earning a lot less.

I don't make enough on any agency that losing one or the other will matter. I was focusing on Shutterstock being one of my two primary. I liked that I had a goal to aim for - it would take me a while, but I would hit the next income level. Now I never will. Even with a rolling year rather than Jan 1st reset. I will disable all my photos at end of month. I have a payout coming this month, so not deleting my account yet. Why is it always contributors who get screwed? Raise your darn prices instead! These kinds of amounts is why I stopped with IStock. I find Adobe stock photo management terrible though - and their keywording painful!

So, does anyone have a clue how this new % compares? I kinda have no clue what the initial total this is based on is. Is this likely to be a drop in earning? Currently only a level 3. Does this work on a rolling basis of last year?