"None of the sellers had any idea how much the photos should cost while the buyers were experienced professionals keen to land a usable photo at a rock-bottom price."

PhotoShelter was trying to sell edgy pictures for real money. The market was not willing or able to buy enough edgy (or outsider, or whatever) pictures for real money. However, there will always be a market for good pictures taken by people who don't know what they're worth. Anybody will take a flyer on an RF image for ten bucks - if the layout doesn't work or the client doesn't like it, whatever. But if it's right on the edge and the license is going to cost an extra grand, and I'll have to go back and buy extra rights if I want more later, forget it, give me something I know has worked before.

Incidentally, the buyers may not be lying - the buyers who whom I refer usually seemed sincere - but the problem is that the buyers are answerable to AD and clients and somewhere along the chain somebody says, "Hey, this is going to cost a lot of money and we don't know if it will work and I never even heard of this photographer. If I publish something weird from Jill Greenberg or Terry Richardson at least I can say they're trendy and hip but if I use a shot some nobody took it's all on me."

Or the whole thing falls through because marketing and placement don't know how to sell whatever edgy thing the buyers and development and focus testing all love. They may want off their shelf at Target, or whatever, but the problem is then where to put them. If you don't have an answer ready, one that makes sense, you don't get off the shelf.

M