It's far too late for this discussion. The train left the station years ago, and it started with royalty free, continued with digital cameras and ultimately the internet. Time paid $120 (not $30, that was the photographer's cut) for the photo because that's the current market value. If they'd been shopping around a bit, they could probably have had it cheaper. iStock is expensive by microstock standards, but pays the lowest commission to the photographer (20% at the lowest).
But look at it from another angle:
Let's say that there are 10,000 travel agencies in this world, and there probably are. Most of them have web sites, customer newsletters, brochures etc. Before microstock, did they buy images at Getty? No way. Far too expensive. They found a brochure that they picked up at some destination and copied whatever they needed. No chance of getting caught, so why worry?
Now, they buy microstock, and they buy a lot. Multiply that with any other kind of business that you can think of. I probably have 3-400 travel photos of good quality on Alamy and a similar quantity of a slightly inferior artistic quality with the microstock agencies (Technical quality is mostly better, that's the nature of the beast. When you sell photos for 10 dollars a piece, you can't afford complaints.). Sales of travel images at Alamy the last year = 0 (that's zero). Microstock sales: 2-10 images per day (travel images alone). As a rule of thumb, I make as much money on microstock per month as I do on Alamy per year. If microstock didn't exist, my income from traditional stock would probably have been higher, but not 12 times higher, not even close.
Yes, I know; the value of my images is diluted and God-knows-what, but if you ask me what's good for the photographer: Money is what's good for the photographer, to pay the rent, the food, the beer and a lens now and then. Microstock photography is as interesting as going to the dentist, and the photos that I post on these forum wouldn't even be accepted (nor would I sell them as microstock), but anything that enters through the door of my apartment that may sell as microstock, takes a detour via the permanent tabletop studio in my kitchen, just in case. 10 minutes photography and 10 minutes post processing, and off it goes. Going to a nice temple that is being photographed 7,568 times per day, 365 days a year? Perfect for microstock too.
It would be nice if magazines like Time paid a few thousand dollars for every photo they used on the front page, but photos like the coins in the jar have become commodities, and commodities sell for what the market is willing to pay. Do you think Time would accept to pay more for the coffee or the paper clips in their offices than Duluth News Tribune does? Hardly.
Most of those who are successful with microstock sales (I'm not) are doing it full time, and some of them have studios with several employees. They probably make more money than most of those complaining that microstock is taking away their business. I know a couple of photographers who retired years ago on their stock portfolio. Too bad for them, but dreams are dreams and reality is reality. They are back working now.
Edit: Do I like microstock? Not at all. I'm as much in favour of it as swine flu, but like swine flu, it's here and it won't go away. And next year, there's another flu. We can choose to live with it, or we can dig our heads deep, deep into the sand.
