The "paying cover designers" part pisses me off. She mentioned the indie projects as if commissioning someone to do your cover art magically fixes the problem of le evil ai and muh starving artist.
Guess what, motherfucker? Indie creators trying to make their name have a harder time BECAUSE of that. They need to eat and drink. They need to pay rent or buy houses. They pay for vehicles and fares. They need to bathe. They need Wi-Fi. They need repairs. They need devices. They need electricity. They may have studios and they pay for that, too. And they do this INDEPENDENTLY. ALONE. VERY LITTLE OUTSIDE HELP. And that bitch nigga is adding to the pressure that the oh so perfect creators must pay for overpriced cover art in addition to their priorities in life. Those poor independent creators are already paying character designers, storyboard writers, coders, riggers, animators, editors and voice actors, and YOU have the gall to tell THEM to SPEND MORE? That is a very fucking out-of-touch take and this is when I'd say she should check her privilege.
Then, when the artists start to drop like flies from the illness and stress, they go HEALTHCARE BAD, EVERYONE TOXIC AND BAD, WE SHOULD HAVE DONE BETTER AS A COMMUNITY WAH WAH WAH YADDA YADDA YADDA BLAH BLAH BLAH AI BAD AI BAD AI BAD FUCK AI BOO HOO HOO SO SAD. That's right. The regret only comes last and they have the gall to blame everyone else for the toll of the pressure put on the artists and it is sickening. They literally are similar to Japan's big manga publishers who give all sorts of tight deadlines to the mangakas then the mangakas fall severely ill - that also includes toxic fans pressuring mangakas to finish the chapter NOW, NOW, NOW. Those mangakas barely use AI and look what happens to them: they die or fall ill then everyone goes "oh what could've been done, how horrible fate is."
The internet creator community in general is very, very cruel. Do something that slightly differs from what people expect from you and they treat you like some person accused of black magic in the Medieval Ages. People need a lot of strategies to attract the right attention. Thank God for algorithms and the block button. Thank God for the ability to ignore haters. Thank God for AI and other innovations for creators. Fuck the bullies and crybabies. They are so mean when they demand then when something happens to their favorite creators because of that shitty behavior, they act like they don't have a role in what happened.
AI is what's weeding out the weak. The presence of AI should be a challenge to develop more unique and interesting art styles. Like I said, the art community shits itself when something doesn't meet its standards like when they saw that Miku fanart with prominent teeth and when they see corporate memphis. Or, for more extreme examples, they start fixing art, bitching because someone's skin tone is too dark or light, there are not enough fat lgbt faggots, sending death threats to people for drawing women with prominent chests no matter the cup size, and making everything so political. Everyone is so busy bitching about dots and lines they cannot face the challenge of something that can generate the said dots and lines quickly in a "soulless evil slop boo hoo" manner. Either adapt to the new condition or fall. Develop your art style and writing style. Explore. Learn to code and develop new skills. BE OPEN TO AI VOICE CHANGERS AND CODERS, EVEN. Stand out so le evil AI won't copy you top easily. Best part? All of it belongs to YOU. You are in full control of your creation, like, for example, you can write a story and also design characters for the cover, how nice is that? You become a jack of all trades for that, and you get to save more money and time because why ask someone to do it for you when you can do it alone? It's the flexible who survive. There's no need to be a bitch or deal with people being bitchy if you can master and carry it out on your own AT YOUR PACE.
Had to get this off my chest because it's a hard and heavy realisation, truly, when you immerse yourself in the creator community. There are lots of wonderful things there and amazing people, truly, but fuck, they should really get their shit together.