Yeh...exclusivity is hard to fathom now for sure, but five years down the road my business might have evolved to the point where it makes sense. Who knows where the future may lead!

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Having spamming deleted, no matter if with rejections with resubmission, or with the spam keywords deleted by the keywords team can't be bad. I don't see where the problem is.
About being exclusive... is very easy, just a question of choice. Everybody with 500 dowloads can be exclusive... or remain independent. That is super-democratic. If you want, it's ok, if you don't want, it's ok as well. In both cases, you'll gain something and you'll lose something. You can't have it both ways. So it's life.

250 downloads, not 500. I think they have changed it last year.

There is nothing wrong with extra advantages for exclusives.
But this looks like they do it the other way around, bullying the non exclusives!
I first thought that this new rule would require extra manpower. But come to think of this; reviewers have to spent time checking keywords anyway, so why not deleting one or two unrelevant keywords if there is no blatant spamming involved? The sooner the image apears online the sooner the image brings in money for both parties. I wonder why all stocksites are not doing this already. Rejecting the image means more work for the contributor and more work for the next reviewer as well. So actually I think this is a wise business move.
BUT... denying this service to non exclusives and even announcing to aggressively reject more non exclusive images is very unprofessional in my opinion. Punish the real spammers, give them warnings, no matter if they are exclusive or not.
Istock makes me feel like a dope dealer who is doing business at the backdoor of a pharmaceutical factory.
They don't make me feel like a worthy contributor anymore. How should I be motivated to become exclusive this way?
I made the top 50 twice on SS last week, SS is my nr 1 earner again.
SXP is doing great, several credit sales every day, recieving 50% commision.
Had an XXL sale the other day--$7,50 for one download.
My last few uploads which are doing great everywhere, are doing misserable on Istock.
Is all this due the non-exclusive search ranking? Can Istock reasure more steady sales if I become Exclusive?
I can find enough exclusives with less sales than I do, so why should my sales increase so spectaculary?
I don't need business cards because I don't do commision work.
I don't need higher upload limits because I don't work so fast.
I don't need lotteries ( again very unprofessional, you're dealing with professionals here, not with Cola drinking-teenagers watching Mtv !)

Now give me a good reason to go exclusive Istock!

Well... I've had until 10,40 $ for XXL's at istock, and until 108 $ comission for EL's. That said, if you are doing so good elsewhere and so bad at istock you shouldn't worry or doubt.

Hi Anne, I understand your devotion to iStock. As an exclusive, you probably do not experience the problems and frustration that we have. Yes, because we don't "love" iStock exclusively as non-exclusive contributors, we don't get iStock's devotion either. That I can accept.

However, I wish you will agree with me that even to strangers, we still want to, from the goodness of our heart, treat other people fairly, and be treated fairly.

If iStock announces that it will not accept submissions from non-exclusives for a week or two, that is fine with me. However, by allowing us to contribute and without giving us a fair chance, it does not look too good. Don't you agree?

For a vector? Mine was a vector, (a 10 credit vector on Istock, so what would be the share for a exclusive?)

I don't have so much devotion, I'm agnostic. And nobody is perfect, but I wouldn't have gone exclusive if I didn't like the site.
About the keywords problem I think it has been just a bad election of words, particularly the word "agressively". Target, in my view, is bad keywording, not non-exclusives or exclusives. And that's fine.

To Gregor: That was an XXL photo.

If any given istock exclusive (a good one) went abroad and spread their port out on at least the big 6 micros, they'd at least double if not triple their earnings. I never understood that. To each his own, though...

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Top Sellers ? Shutterstock ? Fotolia ? Dreamstime ? BigStock ? StockXpert ? FeaturePics ? MostPhotos ?

There are some people who it makes financial sense for, but not many. Just looking at the monthly earnings breakdowns at MSG, few people report istock earnings representing 50% or more of their total monthly microstock income. Some do, but not very many at all. If someone's earnings at istock were regularly 50% or more of their total, AND they were Diamond level, it might make sense to do it. Short of that, it's a loss.

If my earnings hit 60% at istock (extra 10% to account for fluctuations), I'd do it. Getting to that point, however, would pretty much be impossible. It could happen, but it's a long shot. I think it really depends on SS. My earnings at SS are decent, but if they took a dive then I could see istock taking a larger percentage in my total. But again, long shot.

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