change in criteria for quality?

The bar for acceptance is constantly rising.

• Better equipment & software
• More Generative AI options
• New talent is joining Stock
• There's stiffer competition for shelf-space, especially in over-represented keywords like sunsets, clouds & flowers.

Without seeing 1 or 2 examples, we can't be more specific. 

Personally, I think it is a good thing. In my view a lot of photos were passed and they shouldn't have been. Quality, subject matter, composition. What was then is not now. 

I've certainly seen more contributors asking for feedback here than usual lately. Some are obvious as to why, others not so much. Then again, like some people have trouble judging color, I have trouble seeing noise or artifacts unless someone points them out first, so I don't comment on those very often.

Though Adobe has not announced any changes in reviewing practices, many Contributors have reported here and in the Discord server a dramatically increased rate of quality rejections. For many years I've been able to count on a <5% rejection rate, however in the last few months it has ballooned to ~40%. Unfortunately, there's nothing we can do about it, except keep uploading and hope for the best, or stop uploading, which is what I'm doing right now.