I just wanted to add a little something here. I see alot of people talking about quality vs. quantity and glamour vs. amateur and such. And there is much talk about all the Joe Schmoes with digital cameras in hotel rooms. But one think that no one has mentioned (that I've seen) is content EDITING. Even in the amateur market most people want to see a certain degree of quality in the photos. A good post-production editor can take a mediocre set of content and turn it into something special, but most so-called photographers these days either don't know how to do it themselves or won't spend the money to hire someone to do it for them. So you have a massive influx of photos hitting the market from new photographers who (as mentioned earlier) don't know squat about lighting, chemistry with the models, locations, makeup, props, etc. And they are producing photos that are over/underexposed or have flash hot spots or have disgusting color casts and they're trying to compete by selling cheaper content because no one in their right mind is going to pay well for that type of content.
With so many newbies entering the market every day on a limited budget, they're either stealing content, using free content or buying the cheap-ass crap and keeping the cheapo providers in business, while ignoring the good quality stuff. The quality providers that either take good photos to begin with or who edit their mediocre photos suffer because the newbies with cheap content saturate the market and make it harder for the veterans to get their sales (because so many newer webmasters being out there just naturally lower the odds of the veterans getting to the surfer first) and when the veterans find it difficult to get sales then they stop buying from the quality producers and may leave the business altogether. I've seen TONS of people that I've known in the industry leave it recently, even some who have been here since '97 or so. And yes, you can convert sales with crappy content. It takes either good marketing skills or mass traffic (for luck) but it can be done with some work. I've done it in the past, when I couldn't afford to buy any content.
I think that some of the mediocre producers who are failing could pick sales up quite a bit by hiring someone to edit their content for them, perhaps offering some semi-exclusive content in exchange or perhaps giving a percentage of sales (for those who cannot afford the up-front cost of hiring an editor.) Turn crappy content into mediocre content, turn mediocre content into good content.
I know I don't like paying decent prices for unedited content. I'll pay rock bottom prices for it and edit myself, or I'll pay a premium for having the work done for me already, but I certainly won't do both.