[moeedm]

That’s the business of stock photos. Unsplash managed to stick around because they provided free high quality images that were more “real” looking than stock photos. It was supported by ads, which I’m sure kept the site running but when Getty knocks on your door and offers to buy you out ... it’s hard to say no.

The cycle will continue. In its place there will be a new Unsplash which will offer the same + a bit more until it gets bought out too.

[levifig]

To be clear, Unsplash never provided images: they created a website that accepted user submissions, that's it. All content in Unsplash is user generated.

What bothers me about this sale is exactly this: Unsplash cashed in on their user submissions without guaranteeing their users (and use!) would be protected and perpetuated.

This is equivalent of me building a little lemonade stand, inviting a neighbor that makes a good lemonade but doesn't have a very visible stand to come give away their lemonade on my stand, and then selling the entire stand (with lemonade) to Lemonade Store down the street.

[vertis]

I wrote a bunch of articles for a community blog/magazine a while back that had a lot of others in the community doing the same thing. Then the "owner" turned around and sold it to some nameless person that wanted to profit from it.

She patted herself on the back and moved onto building another community thing. I removed my articles and moved on.

It's a real shame, she's very talented, but I struggle to engage with any of her work now because I keep looking for where she's going to try and profit from community participation.

I wish her no ill, but it was a reminder to not treat things as a not-for-profit if they don't have clear governance to back that up.

[toomuchtodo]

The original image licenses still apply even through an acquisition, no? With regards to perpetuated, we can stick them in the Internet Archive.

[glenstein]

Unfortunate but I think you are very right. For my part, I very much do want to find the next Unplash, with a good F-droid app to look at wonderful free high quality images. I'm ready to ride whatever the next wave is in this cycle.