Race to the Bottom
Samuel Zeller on giving away his photos on Unsplash:
But stock photography is dying, people pay less and less for images. I know, I worked for years in a design agency were we regularly had to buy images for clients, and our clients budgets were always getting smaller.
Why should I need to sell images if I have clients paying me to shoot specific images ? To me working for a client face to face is rewarding, way more than making money on digital sales to people I will never interact with.
Zeller’s approach won’t work for everyone, but it is an alternative to trying to make a few bucks off of an online store.
A lot of workers in the United States are worried about computers and robots taking over their jobs. In the photography world, it’s guys like Zeller that worry the stock photographers. Facing a race to the bottom, photographers may have to give their stuff away and hope a client stumbles on them.
Or you can give your photos away and not worry about the rest.