Andy Carolanandycarolan@social.lol
Oct 23, 2026, 8:49 AMRE: https://thepit.social/@peter/117489299806634510
I am legit shocked by this...
... but somehow, not surprised.
Replies
Oct 23, 2026, 8:58 AM@andycarolan The only reason I’m not as shocked as you: a friend told me about it yesterday. It’s crazy but, as you say, not totally surprised.
- Andy Carolanandycarolan@social.lolOct 23, 2026, 9:10 AM
@maique Yup, if they are that badly affected, I can only imagine how smaller entities are doing RN
Oct 23, 2026, 5:21 PM@andycarolan This is terrible. As you say Andy, if it happened to a company like that, how are the smaller businesses coping? How are you doing?
@maique- Andy Carolanandycarolan@social.lolOct 23, 2026, 5:27 PM
- Oct 23, 2026, 5:54 PM
@andycarolan @ctt I don’t really know that much, no. I don’t use Getty, and never needed to purchase stock from them, back in the paper days. I did buy news photos, but very little. We had contracts with news agencies (Reuters, AP, AFP), and they provided all the photos we needed. Never stock.
- Andy Carolanandycarolan@social.lolOct 23, 2026, 6:26 PM
- Oct 23, 2026, 6:31 PM
@andycarolan There was a time 500px had a deal with Getty, and photos could be added to their portfolio, if we wanted, and they liked them. I had a few over there, and they sold a bit. Always for ridiculously low values.
Some people have great success with stock photo, but it’s a specialty I never got into.
- Andy Carolanandycarolan@social.lolOct 23, 2026, 6:33 PM
- Oct 23, 2026, 6:08 PM
@ctt This mostly does not affect us. As Andy says, it’s about scale. They cater to lots of clients, who don’t mind using the same image. We’re in the one-of-a-kind business. The things we do aren’t useful to anyone else, so Getty has no interest in covering those. And only our clients are interested in those specific photos. They still have to hire someone.
- Andy Carolanandycarolan@social.lolOct 23, 2026, 6:28 PM
- Oct 23, 2026, 7:56 PM
@maique Thanks for explaining that. Helpful.
@andycarolan - Oct 23, 2026, 8:00 PM
@ctt My pleasure 😌
Oct 23, 2026, 9:05 PM@maique @ctt @andycarolan one minor detail I'd add is this is US chapter 11 bankruptcy. That's nowhere near the same as most of us think of bankruptcy - it allows the business to continue as-is, but renegotiate all its debt and contracts. Much to the annoyance of competing European airlines, many US airlines have done this to renegotiate their labour contracts in a way which EU airlines can't.
- Oct 23, 2026, 10:31 PM
@hl Thank you, had no idea. Still, for a huge part of their offerings, I really have no idea what their business will look like. Generic photos, millions of them, probably the ones that were fed to the AI guzzlers, are easily reproducible. Is it cheaper to pay cents for them, or just get your AI bot of choice to spit one out?
- Andy Carolanandycarolan@social.lolOct 24, 2026, 3:15 PM
- Oct 24, 2026, 5:56 PM
@andycarolan You’ll have to apply for organic certification!
- Andy Carolanandycarolan@social.lolOct 25, 2026, 7:31 AM
- Oct 24, 2026, 7:30 PM
@andycarolan 🤣🤣🤣 @hl @ctt
- Andy Carolanandycarolan@social.lolOct 23, 2026, 10:31 PM
- Oct 24, 2026, 9:07 AM
@andycarolan @maique @ctt I agree it's not a good sign generally, but it might not be the end.
Oct 23, 2026, 9:20 AM@andycarolan@social.lol Wow. I mean, not entirely surprising, as you say, but still!
- Andy Carolanandycarolan@social.lolOct 23, 2026, 9:38 AM
@jac Scary isn't it!
- Oct 23, 2026, 9:41 AM
@andycarolan@social.lol It's yet another reminder that nobody is too big to fall. Makes you wonder what might take its place, though. Especially in age of AI.
- Andy Carolanandycarolan@social.lolOct 23, 2026, 9:44 AM
@jac I have no doubt at all... it will be AI slop. It's always AI slop.
Rowan Johnsonrowan_johnson@mastodon.socialOct 23, 2026, 12:00 PM@andycarolan I don’t think it’s AI.
The stock media market has just become so much more competitive, and they never adapted their model.
Adobe provides Adobe Stock with all of their Creative Cloud plans, for example. And I personally use Envato Elements which is under £200 per year with super flexible licensing.
Getty and Shutterstock are so expensive by comparison. AI might’ve been the final straw, but the issues are much older.
- Andy Carolanandycarolan@social.lolOct 23, 2026, 1:35 PM
@rowan_johnson Well, it mentions it in the article header as it being a contributing factor, and looking through adobe stock, it’s clear how much ai content is in there. It can be pumped out quickly, at minimal cost, with questionable skills involved.
Fábiofabio@sunny.gardenOct 23, 2026, 4:07 PM@andycarolan Wow!
- Andy Carolanandycarolan@social.lolOct 23, 2026, 4:25 PM
@fabio IKR! *shocked face*
Alexandra :neobread_mug:alexandra@social.lolOct 23, 2026, 5:29 PM@andycarolan You would hope they were too big to fail, but that’s their problem, they just kept gobbling up everyone to stay ahead of the bubble bursting and now! It has.
- Andy Carolanandycarolan@social.lolOct 23, 2026, 6:22 PM
@alexandra Yup, I didn't realise that they tried to merge with Shutterstock 🤔
- Alexandra :neobread_mug:alexandra@social.lolOct 23, 2026, 6:38 PM
@andycarolan And, in between, they sucked up a whole slew of smaller companies along the way. And bullied their way to the top.
So no, no surprises. AI is going to fell dinosaurs and giants.
- Andy Carolanandycarolan@social.lolOct 23, 2026, 7:19 PM
@alexandra It's scary... there's been a HUGE transfer of wealth over this AI grift. Sure, theres some legit LLM stuff out there... has been for years. But the whole Gen AI thing is just horrible.
- Alexandra :neobread_mug:alexandra@social.lolOct 23, 2026, 8:16 PM
@andycarolan It's the biggest con since stocks & share, or the bond market (futures). Remember 2008?
- Andy Carolanandycarolan@social.lolOct 23, 2026, 8:33 PM
@alexandra Yeah, 2007/8 was real messy.
- Alexandra :neobread_mug:alexandra@social.lolOct 23, 2026, 8:39 PM
@andycarolan The bubble burst and we all had to deal with it, while the banks got handouts.
I hate to think of how bad the next burst bubble is going to be.
- Andy Carolanandycarolan@social.lolOct 23, 2026, 8:45 PM
@alexandra Yeah, there was a lot of 'too big to fail' going around then!
- Alexandra :neobread_mug:alexandra@social.lolOct 23, 2026, 8:49 PM
@andycarolan As it is now ...
Davedfir@social.lolOct 23, 2026, 11:02 PM@alexandra @andycarolan The endowment of the foundation I was with lost 40% in value in a hurry in Q4 2007.
- Alexandra :neobread_mug:alexandra@social.lolOct 24, 2026, 2:51 AM
@dfir @andycarolan Yeah, I bet.
- Andy Carolanandycarolan@social.lolOct 24, 2026, 3:16 PM
@dfir that’s a lot @alexandra
- Davedfir@social.lolOct 24, 2026, 3:32 PM
@andycarolan @alexandra Considering the annual budget target was 5% of asset value, it was a huge stressor on spending. If you spend too much, the ability to recover is then hampered.
- Andy Carolanandycarolan@social.lolOct 24, 2026, 3:38 PM
@dfir @alexandra I must confess that I don’t really understand much about that kind of thing
- Davedfir@social.lolOct 24, 2026, 3:55 PM
@andycarolan @alexandra More than fair!