But they don't really work in the modern age. They have so many manual processes (copyright, content checking, payments etc...) that the fees that are charged to stock photographers is crazy high.

Does Shutterstock charging an average fee of 77% to photographers constitute as working well? Wouldn't a 5% fee work even better? Is exclusivity fair and working well too?

We believe that photographers have only ever had the current stock photography monopoly to deal with, so whilst it works, it is far from optimal. Photochain is not the alternative. It is the inevitable future.