Gumroad, A New Threat For The StockPhoto Businessmodel?

Here at Fast Media Magazine I have argued in the past that some of the biggest innovation in the photography business comes from outside the stockphoto industry. While an industry that holds a valuable asset in the photography it creates and distributes has at times been slow to adapt to change those not burdened by legacy thinking have come up with a string of businesses around photography.

The latest and most visible examples are Instagram, recently sold for $1 Billion to Facebook and Pinterest, the third largest social network after only having started a few months ago. Now a young programmer that has helped build the pinterest website has started Gumroad, a site where you can sell anything you create, including photography.

The video even uses stockphotos as an example of complication and taking large commissions (check out 10 secs into the video). Here’s is yet another innovation coming from outside that could have an impact on the current stockphoto businesmodel

An introduction to Gumroad. from Gumroad on Vimeo.