stock images

Old proverbs contain plenty of ageless wisdom. If only people noticed this timely…

Unfortunately though the top-level managers of the microstock agencies seem to be too busy to devote their valuable time to such menial thoughts. Rumors have it that sooner or later, while watching complacently the increasing revenues, a brilliant notion pops out between some rosy-cheeked executive’s ears: “Why should we leave so much money in the hands of the morons that hand us their pictures? We have the market, we have zillions of well-selling images, we dictate the rules.”

We all know where that leads: it’s the so-called “Shutterstock effect”. Curtail drastically the contributors’ shares, sell lots of images at bargain prices, give to the beggars their two cents, ignore the chorus of moans, anger and insults that raises from the rabble, see your income grow, shake hands with the colleagues, I’m a genius!

And then, after a few months, the backlash: many contributors feel cheated or even insulted and close their accounts, many more delete their best pictures leaving behind just crap a blind man wouldn’t buy, the incoming flow of images drops to a trickle, the buyers notice the drop in quality and go buy elsewhere, the income curve falls miserably (dammit, maybe with some Viagra…).
And eventually the friendly suggestion “you better start looking for a new job”. But then it’s too late, the damage is done.

Sad as it is, now it appears to be Alamy’s turn. In the last days, without warning or asking for an OK, they surprised the contributors world by selling off a large number of pictures for a few cents, and those who demanded an explanation whatsoever bumped their heads against a pretty long local holiday – no one there to reply, what a coincidence!
One could hope that it’s just a misunderstanding of sorts, perhaps a glitch in the software or a silly human error, but the symptoms are all too clear, and the suspicion that Alamy is shutterstocking is overwhelming.

That’s quite a shock indeed: not long ago they still had a spotless reputation as an agency that cared for the contributor’s satisfactions, paid reasonably fair shares, and provided good help when needed. More than a little demanding perhaps, if you think of the ordeal of keywording it adequately, but you cannot expect such a high-level agency to accept just any picture: they sell excellent quality and are entitled to demanding it.
They are my agency, we do a good job together… good old days? 🙁

Where will all this end? Hard to say that without a top-grade crystal ball and some powerful psi powers. However, judging by the microstock market trend in the last couple of years, a reasonable modicum of pessimism would suggest that most of the major microstock agencies will slowly (or even not so slowly) collapse under the weight of their own greed.

The scenario we could expect in a near future might show us two or three large surviving microstock agencies selling mediocre images very cheap by the ton on behalf of countless grumbling but resigned private contributors, a few ad-supported artistic websites selling very little, the usual lot of websites offering as “windows backgrounds” good images for free (but for personal use only).
And, with a bit of luck, a constellation of sites owned, managed and constantly fed by skilled photographers and graphic artists offering directly to the buyer very high quality images at a fair price, no bloodsucker share included.

If you want the best apples at a decent price, go knock directly at the farmer’s door…:-D