Question about 500px followers

Since 500px got bought out last year I've noticed that the overwhelming majority of 'likes' I get are from Eastern Europe, Russia, Asia and the Middle East. I don't get much love from people Stateside. I know it's not my content, or when I post as both vary quite dramatically.

Just wondering if anyone else has noticed something similar to this... and if so, what you think is the reason for it...

I was thinking the same thing. I didn't realize they were purchased, but it does seem like the user population has changed. Maybe they've emphasized their marketing efforts in different regions as compared to the past years.

I've tried so hard to like 500px but I've always felt like the community interaction was lacking. I love the clean presentation but I've found it hard to connect with others on there as opposed to Flickr, for example.

I feel exactly the same.

If you're wanting 'social interaction' in addition to your uploads,
from the standpoint of a US user, Flickr seems the way to go
(if not with SmugMug as the new owner).

At least, that's how I've understood Flickr to be a strength
with 'community' interaction, if that's what you want.

I've tried to like Flickr from shortly before they were acquired
by SmugMug, but I found their user interface completely unintuitive,
and in many ways counterintuitive to what PhotoBucket was
before they went to a policy of usury and racketeering.


I recently went to Imageshack as a (first)paid host, not as a 'community'
sharing service, but because I wanted to get off the merry-go-round
of free hosts which were suddenly shutting down, or going to extortion
pricing, or severely limiting file numbers, etc...

But Imageshack does offer some of the interaction if you allow it.
I just don't need or want it, so I haven't enabled it on my account.

FarmerTed1971 wrote in post #18994842
Since 500px got bought out last year I've noticed that the overwhelming majority of 'likes' I get are from Eastern Europe, Russia, Asia and the Middle East. I don't get much love from people Stateside. I know it's not my content, or when I post as both vary quite dramatically.

Just wondering if anyone else has noticed something similar to this... and if so, what you think is the reason for it...

Well, when they were bought by a Chinese company, I cancelled my account and have stayed away ever since.

I was doing fashion photography at the time and was using 500px as an external amateur reference. The top photos, imho, came from a few Russian photographers and one from Strasbourg, France. The Strasbourg photographer worked all over France and had a legitimate photography and retouching business. It was, let's say, "interesting" that the Russian photographers had many extraordinarily gorgeous models. I browsed literally thousands of models in the DC and NY areas through Model Mayhem in my own weekly searches for models, and these women from the Russian photographers on 500px were superior. The high amount of superior models from the population sizes of the areas they were in seemed unnatural. Call it cold war paranoia.

When 500px was up for purchase, I noted there were people who were upset with who was buying it, indicating they would leave if it happened. There were concerns over copyright protection, how photos could be or would be marketed, and it seemed the purchase was going to change the overall business model of the company. If you Google, something like, "500px bought by chinese company", you'll get more of the story and perhaps the background, too.

I'd make the guess that many of the "western" photographers, USA, Canada, perhaps western Europe, simply left.

I just don’t think it was a mass exodus. That would trend toward the West having racist tendencies WAY more than those in the other countries I mentioned. I dunno, perhaps you’re correct.

Will it get even worse now that the Covid-19 pandemic originated in China?