The other school in fact welcomes it. The argument here is that yes, while it in a way erodes the value of the biz, the twist comes here when it actually forces the current players in the market to think out of their comfort zones and move into something that is different and stand out from the crowd.
I have two responses to this argument. The first is that it is very similar to suggesting that we should all stop taking private or public transport to get from A to B, forcing us to run to get to places and thereby getting fitter in the process. And I can think of a million other similar analogies which might or might not fit well, but you should get the gist of what I'm suggesting even if it isn't the best analogy in the world.
In response to aiding creativity and productivity in an effort to stand out from the crowd, that only applies if we believe the photographic profession was stagnant before. The fact is that photographers have always had an incentive to do something different and stand out from the crowd - to get ahead of their peers and succeed financially.
The thing is some of these hobbyist or amateurs are in fact very good at what they do and are able to bring something different to the table. So this forces or pushes the current market players to do things differently and take a different approach to the way they have been working so far.
I cannot speak for every professional out there, but if this was the case then I certainly wouldn't have a problem whatsoever. The problem is that a lot of these hobbyists and amateurs are not necessarily very good at what they do, and the only thing they bring to the table is (in some cases greatly) reduced fees/prices.
If someone can offer something I can't, and charges as much or more than what I do and gets the work instead of me, then fair play whether they are professional or have a different day job. If they do the same or worse and charge less then that's just price competition, and for reasons detailed in a previous post I can't compete. And if they charge next to nothing, then there's no way I can compete.
A few weeks ago a prominent UK photography magazine contacted me. They were very complimentary about some of my work, and wanted to use it in the magazine. Naturally after a fair amount of pleasantries, the issue of payment had not been broached so I brought it up. The response was that they normally use istockphoto, so... no sorry they couldn't pay.
I can't compete with that, I can't even give a good response as to why they should pay me anything for my pictures if they can get images from microstock sites for literally next to no money.
There is a lot of microstock that is rubbish. A lot that is average. And a lot that is good. But all of that pales into insignificance when it sells for next to nothing. But read my previous post; next to nothing is still next to nothing more for a hobbyist who doesn't have to depend on it for a living, whose images would otherwise sit and collect dust. If they sell 50 or 100 copies of that even better still.
One thing that caught my eye was a hand painted pic of the couple which cannot be reproduced and it is one of a kind.
I know this is not what you are insinuating, but it is something I am going to pick up on because it's one of my areas of interest. But this is something that photography suffers from, the whole concept that a photograph is not one of a kind, and the fact that photography can take all of a fraction of a second to complete, and the fact that anyone can take
a photograph.
Society as a whole struggles to attach much value to photography as a result. But it's strange that if I can't draw or paint (and I can't), no one will look at my doodling and think it's a proper drawing or a painting. But society looks at a photograph as a photograph. Anyone can take one of those...
of course there's more than just one long-time professional photographer here..