Businesses need more than just cost per image than a raw ChatGPT subscription doesn’t give you.

There’s also workflows around non-frontier models that make sense, especially at-scale (think internationalization of a marketing campaign to 200 countries across different media formats). A lot of the same rules that apply to LLMs apply to diffusion. The same argument could be made around Codex/Astra/Sol and many people are happily paying for tools like Devin/Cognition.

But I agree with you that if you are not careful, the subsidies from big labs can eat your business.

EDIT: I hope you’re enjoying Krea 2! What GPU are you running it on?

I think the early models distorted the perception of what artists actually need. It's not about workflows. Image creation is inherently iterative. None of the platforms seem to understand that, while AI artists have somehow fallen in love with the unnecessary complexity of node-based tools. Apparently, 400 tangled noodles look impressive when the boss peers over your shoulder.

The big studios and agencies are all building custom tooling as they always have but now a lot faster.