DuckDuckGo still has the functionality, but I don't think they pay content providers. From that I conclude that it's not just a function of "willing to pay vs n

DuckDuckGo still has the functionality, but I don't think they pay content providers. From that I conclude that it's not just a function of "willing to pay vs not", but that "got sued" also plays a role. Content providers in this case is every web page that is indexed for image search. Microsoft might have contracts in place with image services (getty, alamy, and whatnot), but I have my doubts that they pay every photographer's blog who's images they display in their image search.