I called it an "ugly-race-to-the-bottom" because the micro stock niche debases the art and makes the photographer's work into a commodity judge mainly on its' cost. I don't know about you, but I won't take an afternoon setting up a shoot, utilize thousands of dollars worth of gear, spend more time selecting/post processing and then submit it to a service that will sell the rights for 1 dollar and pay me pennies.
The micro stock model has worked because pricing was high. It's swung the other way. Fair value is not received in many cases.
If you want Art, you can go put up a gallery, and whine there about how the little people who aren't paying you money don't properly appreciate your vision.
If you want business.... Economics 150, friend: In an efficient market, the marginal cost of a new unit of something is the same as its price. If that's less than what you think is "fair", perhaps that's a signal that (a) there are too many people in this market, don't bother, use your skills and/or equipment elsewhere, or (b) someone else can get snazzy photos to people-who-buy-snazzy-photos more efficiently than you.
The price of photographic equipment, the price of introduction to stock-photo companies, the price of accepting-stock-photo-company-terms-and-conditions, and the price of browsing-stock-photo-catalogs have all fallen dramatically thanks to technology and the Internet. That run-of-the-mill stock photos are now much cheaper ought to be expected.
Aren't there plenty of folks who would give away the images for free, even if it took them a day, just because they love doing photography, and are thrilled at the idea of anyone using their images at all?
Like there are many coding free apps for Android and making no money doing it... kids or first timers. I believe in few years there will be less of both, as the first generation doing this has turned bitter and told everyone who cares to listen not to make the same mistake.
Now we are living exceptional times in that cost of hardware to do good work is so cheap that anyone can have a go at photography / programming / ...
The micro stock model has worked because pricing was high. It's swung the other way. Fair value is not received in many cases.