Wired 14.06: The Rise of Crowdsourcing:

Wired writes about the rise of Crowdsourcing - which seems to be just a fancy way of summarising the network effect on niche markets.

"They were on a tight budget, so I charged them my nonprofit rate," says Harmel, who works out of a cozy but crowded office in the back of the house he shares with his wife and stepson. He offered the museum a generous discount: $100 to $150 per photograph. "That's about half of what a corporate client would pay," he says. Menashe was interested in about four shots, so for Harmel, this could be a sale worth $600.

After several weeks of back-and-forth, Menashe emailed Harmel to say that, regretfully, the deal was off. "I discovered a stock photo site called iStockphoto," she wrote, "which has images at very affordable prices." That was an understatement. The same day, Menashe licensed 56 pictures through iStockphoto - for about $1 each.

Why would someone pay me $200 for a photo when they can get one that's pretty much similar for a dollar? If your needs aren't exacting, why do you need to pay a professional?

People pay for a photographer to capture a certain something - an event such as a wedding that will never be repeated, a moment in time when a family comes together for a portrait, a product for a sales brochure, a building for a portfolio. Stock as we know it may not be fully dead - but it needs to evolve before long, or it will be.