Instead they reinvented themselves, and the market.

Bruce Livingston, recently retired from Getty images started Istockphoto by putting some of his images on it and trading them with others. Surprised by its popularity, he decided to charge, not really to make money, but to pay for his hosting bills. He thus invented microstock.  Another ” failed” photographer, Jon Oringer, started Shutterstock with 30,000 of his own images, mostly because he couldn’t get accepted in a traditional stock agency.