> because you just gave an anecdote that shows the truth is "if someone is using an AI avatar, they might have been your customer before AI".

I stopped commission artists for avatars years before that because of "It wasn't super cheap (hundreds of dollars). At the end of the day though, spending hundreds of dollars, waiting weeks, and then maybe getting 85% of what I wanted"

I got tired of waiting weeks only to get honestly a middling result. I stopped buying art and won't go back because the economics don't make sense to me regardless of AI.

> only a small remainder of the most difficult/sensitive things being left

Yep. It's what happens to industries as technologies progress. Horse carriage drivers and elevator operators either found something more specialized or moved out of the industry. If someone is making a living off onesie-twosie low-dollar commissions and can't figure out how to translate that to something else in the industry, they don't have any other choice.

Personally I think a lot of technology progression is long-term positive for humans because it means humans get to do something more fulfilling than rote work. It's dystopian and awful but personally, it's a shove for artists to move onto better art.