Similar to you, I love taking pictures (yeah, I'm also "that guy" on every trip :)). Also similar to you, I tried stock photography, but only Shutterstock.

Here's where the differences start...

I didn't invest the massive time you did to edit, upload, and tag hundreds of photos. I wanted to see if there was enough ROI, for which a few dozen photos were enough.

My result was almost like your, in fact, just $0.40 less! LOL