Time, Inc (including SI) now pays $50 per pic, no matter the size or placement.

[Tom]

Don’t Give Up Hope Against Photography’s Dark Forces | Black Star Rising

Wow. That's nothing. Already shooting on spec, now you can get a double-truck and get $25 (shooting on spec gives you 1/2.)

You could place three great pics and barely make enough for parking, gas and dinner.

[Dobick]

the article brings up some good points, but I am not sure that the guy is right about

There is hope in the knowledge that soon readers will be fed up with seeing the same images everywhere, regurgitated through the same dull pipeline.

There is hope in knowing that soon, not every Web site or magazine will accept the exact same images that their competitors have, even if they’re cheap

Case-in-point: There are four local TV stations that do news coverage. About 12 years ago, one big corporate entity came in and bought two of them and put them under the same management team to save in having to pay two station managers, etc. It wasn't long before they also cut down to one set of photographers, so both stations are using the exact same footage. The only people that are different are the on air personalities. The stories are even written by the same writers.

Why do I mention this? Because people will usually only watch one station for the local news. Unless you happen to watch the 6 on one station and the 10 on another, you would never realize that they were doing this. Both stations are as successful today as they have ever been. As far as I know they lost no market share at all by going this route, and any market share that they did lose was quickly made up by savings ten fold in production cost and over head.

My point is that people will probably never notice the slide to mediocrity, and once they have the story and the images from one source, may very well never go searching for additional sources.

I do hope that exclusivity regains in value -- but I won't hold my breath