A note on the ‘Hobbyists’, I’ll still take Photos without Microstock, Microstock just adds a bit of extra interest.
If I wasn’t selling RF images I’d still be giving them away on places like Deviantart.com for other community based artists (no-commercial) to make use of and create. Originally starting with Photo-manipulation in Photoshop using free stock, then I started creating stock feeling that others without a camera or scanner could benefit from the stuff I scanned and shot.

Thats my nice ethics behind starting, now its a subtle second income…

Tom Grill has images on all the top microstock agencies but only around 100 images, depending on the agency. One would assume that, for someone of his caliber, this is a ‘test’ rather than an intent to make money. But your point is completely accurate – the top traditional stock photographers in the world are all making moves in the microstock market one way or another.

-Lee

Meanwhile, the micros would essentially “hold the hand” of their photographers helping photographers get started, providing constructive criticism, specific critique of each image, not to mention the open and welcoming community to help photographers who had technical or creative shortcoming. The micros were receptive to all images regardless of the level of production or experience of the photographer. The micros essentially assisted in creating good stock shooters whereas the traditional stock agencies just wanted to capitalize on existing professionals.

Micro stock is an open and free flowing of information model whereas traditional stock photography is a closed, closed lip “good ‘ol boys club” model. Micro stock clearly shows what sales, and they teach photographers how to shoot what sales not to mention essentially providing “real time” statistics on how well a photographer’s images perform.

In spite of the success of the micro model the only agency that came close to providing this level of support and respect for their photographers was Photoshelter, which sadly closed. Sure Getty has opened the door to the average Joe photographer with their Photographers Choice (originally Lifesize) collection, but it has a prohibitive cost of $50 per image.

So where would these “better” image be elevated too? Didn’t iStock essentially try this with iStock Pro? Failed miserably. I wont argue that Micro prices started too low, could have, should have started higher, but the blind old luddites of the old guard (traditional stock agencies) missed the boat big time and now they’re trying to play catch up, it’s way too late IMO. Ask any of the successful micros stars, it too time consuming, costly, complicated, and just not financially worth it to place images with the traditional agencies. C’mon, even Tom Grill has images on Shutter stock. Sorry Zave.

The key issue is overlap. Getty has great images but so does Istockphoto. There’s a lot of overlapping great work between micros and traditional agencies. Move that overlap of great images out of micros and make it available exclusively at a traditional agency and that agency now has greater influence on price.

Getty is already testing the affects of a similar model with Istockphoto contributors and more recently Flickr members.

It’s just part of the rules in economy. Why would this in photography be different, specially in the digital age where photography product like camera’s and lenses are available for many more people than it used to be.
I can understand that it scares the “older” photographers, and that they try to protect their old markets, but they won’t win that game.

I believe that great images will always sell. I don’t know how much future there are for generic easily copied images on microstock or trad agencies.

The other accusation often levelled at microstock is that it’s not creative. I disagree – it’s as creative as the photographer wants to be. Maybe some photographers want to shoot the glasses on the financial reports, but equally, some go in search of something more interesting that illustrates the same concept and will still sell.

I think the ‘pros’ or ‘artists’ will eventually realise that they can still continue to make money from photography, but they’ll be playing catch up with everyone else.

I would add that many professional ‘traditional’ stock photographers are already in microstock, have advanced tests of microstock in place, or have already started preparing to enter microstock in a big way. That future is now.

-Lee

I believe that we are rapidly on our way to a world where there are 2 types of stock photographers: Those who become brand names and those who (more or less) anonymously supply images to stock agencies on a commodity basis.

Those photographers who become brands names will need to not only create extremely high-quality, distinctive and innovative imagery, they will also need to market themselves and their work directly to photo buyers. This will require marketing savvy and at least some capital investment. But the payoff is that, if successful, they will own their brand and, most importantly, the relationship with the buyer. To be known for quality (however you want to define it), reliability and service (for example, being able to give a usage history of the image or offering partial exclusivity) enables those photographers to charge premium rates.

The photographers who market their images through stock agencies will increasingly become suppliers of a wholesale commodity. Their imagery is used to prop up the brand of the stock agency and if the buyer was happy with the image they will go back to the stock agency but not necessarily to that photographer’s work. As Peepo points out, that doesn’t mean that photographers can’t make a living, maybe even a good living through microstock. Or even that the images are overall worse than those marketed directly by photographers. But this model guts the market for traditional stock agencies.

I think is what spells the death of all but the most innovative and tenacious traditional stock agencies. Microstock agencies are much more efficient in gathering and distributing commodity images and individual photographers are better suited to create a meaningful brand and ensure consistent quality. Traditional stock agencies are very good at marketing, and while marketing is extremely important, in the end it’s not enough.

“6.1. Introduction
Since the start of Microstock sites there has been a lively debate wether Microstock sites are killing the stock business or not. Especially from the side of the traditional stockindustry a lot of arguments against Microstock sites has been brought forward.

One of the arguments against Microstock sites often heard is that photography in general and the submitters in particular are the great losers of this new model. ”

….

….

“6.5. Conclusion
Digital photography did hurt many professional wedding- and portrait-photographers. Now Microstock sites are doing the same with the average professional stockphotographer. The only way they can stay successful is to specialize, but those who can’t distinguish themselves from the crowd will certainly have a rough time ahead. ”

seems nothing has changed since then )

for those interested in the whole article :
http://www.perrush.be/SYF_micro_E_6.html