People love to create stock, I say that’s wrong, just be honest with yourself and you will agree that you should actually hate stock! Here are 16 reasons and I am sure you can find a lot more to hate the micro stock industry.

1. Stock is uncreative compared to artistic work
   You are not free to do anything, even if you think you are. You want to sell your work and therefore you have to create something that people want to buy.

2. You have to please clients to make sales
   You actually have to please the clients less than when you do contract work, but you still have to create stuff that people want to buy.

3. Technical perfection is more important than artistic vision
   It pretty much does not matter how great your idea is behind your picture, everything that matters is technical perfection and if there is purple fringe or a bit of noise, you are out.

4. You have to promote your work to be really productive
   Creating stock is not enough, you have to promote the stuff yourself to create some real sales.

5. It’s a numbers game
   The more stuff you create the more you can sell. It’s all about having the right item for the right person at the right time.

6. Your work is judged by others
   And I don’t mean by your customers, rather by amateur artists like yourself. It’s not that most people doing this are professionals. They are professional artists just like most of the people submitting there.

7. Some topics sell, others don’t
   Some niches are saturated; others are not interesting for commercial purposes. You can’t change that and you are doing spec work.

8. You have to find trends before others do
   The main thing a contributor has to care about is which thing will be the next big hit and produce according to that.

9. You devalue your work
   You devalue your work, simple as that. You become a mass producer, nothing more. You can put it as you want to, but this process devalues your work as it flood the market with high quality, cheap images.

10. Other people can simply look what sells and copy your work
    Create an awesome piece, you better get the word out before someone else rips off your style and creates stuff like you did.

11. You lose a lot rights for very little money
    You give away a lot of your rights for very little money. Giving stuff away for free is great, but selling stuff for less than it’s worth is simply stupid. Big names save a lot money and you are not even making a name with it.

12. Stock sites are like a factory producing a high output
    Ever wondered why hand-crafted items are more expensive than machine work? It takes time and dedication to produce them, they are unique and people value them far more. How much is a 20$ stock item really worth?

13. You earn less than 50% of a sale
    This is what should everyone really piss off… you earn less than the company, which is ok, but you should earn at least as much as they do. They are not the only ones having costs running servers and people working in the company, you are working your time creating items, you are the one building their content, you should be worth at least 50%.

14. You lose artistic freedom
    You sacrifice your freedom over some cheap work, as you have to create stuff that sells or you can simply stop contributing.

15. You compete with amateurs
    You compete with amateurs who do this for fun and don’t care about the money.

16. You have to be lucky
    You can be skilled, but you have to be a bit lucky, just like everywhere else. Unless you don’t get lucky it’s hard to create top selling items. You have to rank well in the search; otherwise you won’t sell much in high trafficked niches.