This is not an apples to apples comparison. You're expecting people to run their own server? Add in costs to maintain the server, learning how to upload files,

This is not an apples to apples comparison. You're expecting people to run their own server? Add in costs to maintain the server, learning how to upload files, any downtime or wrong setup costs are on the user. You can say $399 is ransom, but that's not unreasonable in my mind. It's a $399 business cost for these sellers on Amazon, EBay, Etsy. Those pictures have earned them more than $399 in the lifetime they've had them.