And now this...
Gеtty Images, the biggest stock photography agency that refuses to accept photos generated with artificial intelligence is in the process of bankruptcy, amid the rise of AI. Its shares have fallen by more than 99% and investors have essentially lost everything if they haven't managed to sell their shares in time - they have already been delisted from the stock exchange, and are currently worth $0.02.
I don't feel sorry for the Gеtty family, they have already done similar 'financial restructurings', sales and mergers of their profitable businesses before, and despite all the losses, they remain a very rich family.
I feel sorry for all of us.
Firstly, in many aspects of life, you can already see how everything is done from today to tomorrow, without thinking about the future.
Because... there is no future.
This company... maybe everyone has heard of it, everyone knows the photos of celebrities, all provided by it, especially I found out about it that way. Owning things of such value, I never thought that it could go bankrupt.
Even now, in the current state of affairs.
Even if the world were to be somewhat destroyed, as everyone already expects, wouldn't photos of these destroyed and disappeared things be sought after? Well, then no one would have the money to buy such things. And probably after AI takes over, it would start creating everything, as it already does. But I still have some last hope left. Or at least, I had it.
I feel sorry for us as humans, also because until recently this company was encouraging its contributors to give up all other agencies and upload their photos only there, so that it could receive a slightly higher percentage of profits and so that the photos of these contributors would receive more visibility.
I wonder how many people have been fooled by these calls, because yes, visibility is greater when you are an exclusive contributor only to this agency and sales are therefore more, but how long did this last?
It seems that it simply deceived people in some way and is now leaving, declaring bankruptcy.
The other big agency, Adobe, which has been flooded with AI-generated images in recent years and, according to statistics, in 2025, half of its portfolio was already AI-generated "pictures", has practically almost stopped accepting real photos. They haven't gone bankrupt yet because in these bad times they are emphasizing machine-generated content, no matter how misleading it is, they have doubled their Photoshop fees and are implementing all sorts of other methods to stay afloat in this crisis, current and even greater in the future.
People have really lost their minds about this because, I keep wondering, who buys AI-generated 'photos'? Who needs this sh^t?
Are we really so sick of reality that we replace it with something so artificial?
I may have told you how Adobe didn't even bother to check my photos of a city in Bulgaria, while the system was flooded with hundreds of misleading AI pictures of that city, showing things and places in it that don't exist. My photos sat in the queue for months until I deleted them myself.
Really, we alone are causing all this to ourselves. Unless the plan is to replace the real with something that doesn't exist. If this agency continues to exist, I wouldn't be surprised if all the real photos are deleted, leaving only the fake ones - bearing the names of places that exist, but with non-existent things inside. The next generations of people will grow up with this 'truth'. Just as they will probably be told that AI has written all the books in the world and created all the music, as I recently read under a post by a world-famous musician I personally know - that we may be banned from listening to music created by humans in the near future.
But what is felt, as I said, in the actions of both agencies is something that I know very well, because this is done by all the people and institutions, monopolists and all kinds of agencies in the poor country where I live - let's make this quick profit now, let's make this money, let's take this money from the people, no matter what, because tomorrow... tomorrow there might not be any.
I really want to be wrong, I really want all these opinions and videos that come from all over the world to be wrong. But here I am - I see it for real.
This rich family will reduce their debts, or even get rid of them, they may even make a profit after selling their company. They will then go to an already secured refuge, no matter what happens in this world. Let us think about ourselves. I feel sorry for the ordinary descent person who has spent their whole life wondering how to survive, perhaps never seen a single peaceful day in their life. And now this...
Well, I didn't intend to write about 'this' in this post. I will in the next one. What I wanted to say here is that it seems like the world is already falling apart, seeing such big companies go bankrupt. I see this in Bulgaria every day. But on such an international level?
What do you think?
This might make a few real persons here think more on the matter.
Ironically, the first two comments you've received are by AIs, evidently.
That family has many lines of business and it is, and has been, always about money for them. Once a business stops making profits, it is set to be sunset. No brainer.
It feels as one matrix wasn't enough to handle human "progress".
Now we have a matrix within a matrix. Many people are scared and prepare for doom but more probably, a world is just shifting and evolving more rapidly that many could adapt to.
I wish you /and myself too/ see the big picture! :-)
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Every time the topic of my post is the dangers associated with using AI, and I receive comments from bots (which is inevitable, since all my posts get commented on by bots) - it’s just so grotesque!
Indeed, we ourselves are to blame for everything that happens to us. I have a bad feeling that about 80% of the population of the earth is brainless, the rest are so greedy that their greed borders on brainlessness - they are ready for anything, even destruction or self-destruction. And whether there are 2 or 5% of reasonable people who would weigh everything on the scales, would consider all the possibilities and dangers before making any decision. Wait, now I remember that according to statistics this is 15% of the population of the entire earth. But this does not mean that these are exactly the people who will survive, a completely different group would survive.
As for the big picture - here's a small example of a simple thing that was before my eyes today, on the day of the next election in the country. An acquaintance had written on FB that she would not vote because she did not believe in fair elections and so many people attacked her, that this was irresponsible and how important her vote was, in fact, by not voting, she actually voted for the worst people, etc. Why I mention this - I think that I have only recently realized the big picture regarding elections in the country, and it is not a blooming one. If something really changed through elections, and personal choice was important, we would not be in this miserable situation already 37 years after the "change", with absolutely no change. The funniest thing is that on TV they say - these are the trends and these are the attitudes of the population - this person or this party will win and indeed, this person and this party are winning, although personally, for example, I don't know a single person who would vote for the one who won the previous elections with a dizzying majority. Is personal choice really important? I doubt it. So, the big picture in general for everything is not good at all. You might rather want to say - to find some hope or possibly something positive in this big picture, which is also quite difficult. Or rather, perhaps, to find the strength and abilities to adapt to all this, because personally I really have a problem with adaptation...
Hm... well... I am not surprised!
I think they acquired Shutterstock not long ago, so SS will follow that destiny, maybe, or maybe not, we are about to see. Funny how they decrease contributor cuts but don't downgrade their offices and bonuses but that's another topic.
I deleted my account at Getty/iStock years ago, after receiving my cut of under a cent for some of my photographs sold via their "third-party".
It was insulting.
Speaking frankly, I am a bit satisfied they are going out of this business, after exploiting poor photographers for so long!
At the same time, sorry for your time and efforts.
When are we going to declare Stock Photography a dead business? :|
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The collapse of Getty Images highlights how AI is reshaping creative markets—do you think this shift will push more agencies to embrace AI-generated content or drive a niche for purely human-made art? 🚨📸💡
Me impactó el dato de las acciones a $0.02: en mi experiencia, cuando una empresa rechaza una tecnología emergente por principios, el mercado no la perdona. Me pregunto cuántos contribuidores exclusivos habrán quedado sin ingresos tras ese llamado de Getty a subir solo ahí.