According to Fotolia, the increment for their own royalty is a must to expand their marketing coverage to country like China. If what they speak is the truth, then I must say this is for everyones good. I do not mind if Fotolia will take my 20% royalty to market more. Afterall, without marketing, a business will not work. It is OK to get a little less on the royalty if they are able to increase the volume of downloads.
But how true is the above statement? My 20% commissions may not be fully gone into development and marketing. 15% of my cut may go into the upper managements salary so that they can go for a vacation on a cruise to see Alaskans melting ice. We are the minority. We work hard, but we dont get our share back, and we are not able to see the truth. There is no transparency in this.
The only solution for all these problem is to have a revolution. Is like how Google suddenly takeover the search industry, and how Apple iPhone change the communication devices. We love Google and Apple more and more each days, and that has never happen in microstock industry. I wish that one day, a revolution will come and takeover the whole industry to a new height where it will benefit everyone (contributors, the agency, and buyers). Adobe should create a microstock site. But they dont have Steve Job or Bill Gates.
Revolution must come. Now the only savior is Shutterstock. If it offers exclusivity, I will definitely join them. I believe 90% of the independent contributors will join Shutterstock if it offers exclusivity and increase the pricing. Shutterstock earning is about 30-100 times more than other agencies. With move like this, competitors such as Fotolia and Dreamstime will really go down.
