This is actually not necessarily only a rich thing. There are numerous artists that will accept commissions and create something for you, unique to you, and it's not thousands of dollars.

But your statement brings up (or at least makes me think of) what I think is an interesting point: there's the notion of mass media, which started when broadcasting became a thing. Play 1 recording via a method where potentially millions can hear or see it. It was after the development of broadcast technology that copyright maximalism took hold. IMHO the current IP regime is for that purpose, and cracks are showing in it because media is becoming more fragmented and more personalized. Would mass media ever become a thing of the past?

Cool, sounds like the 20X0's version of "we'll just outsource the engineers".

Of course, they have relatively little to lose and can just reverse course in a few years, likely undercutting the market despite talent being more efficient and self sufficient and able to generate more funds for the company (if I take the charitable end road for this AI stuff).

I guess history really does rhyme.

I'm writing an article titled "Is Betteridge's law true?"