I always got a weird spidey sense from Getty Images and similar stock photo sites, and this just solidifies it. They exist in this limbo between open and closed

I always got a weird spidey sense from Getty Images and similar stock photo sites, and this just solidifies it. They exist in this limbo between open and closed, somehow finding a way to greatly enrich themselves while simultaneously not enriching their content contributors. Same for sites that put published papers behind paywalls, and even news sites that block access to articles unless the user goes to the enormous effort of (gasp) opening a new private window in the browser. I don't know how, but that stuff all has to end. We've got to move past this tragedy of the commons that's happening with copyright. We all suffer just so a handful of greedy rent seekers can be the gate keepers and shake us down. I had hoped that we'd have real micropayments by now so people could each spend perhaps $10 per month and distribute those funds to websites they visit and content they download, a few pennies at a time. Instead we somehow got crypto pyramid schemes and NFTs. I'm just, I'm just, I don't even know anymore! Can someone explain it? Why aren't the people with the resources solving this stuff? Why do they put that duty onto the hacker community, which has to toil its life away in its parents' basement on a shoestring budget as yet another guy becomes a billionaire? I'm just so over all of the insanity. How would something like this AI ban even be enforceable? Whatever happened to fair use? Are they going to spy on everything we do now and send the copyright police? Truly, what gives them the right? Why are we paying these people again?