I won't say EVERY one of them but I'm still VERY pissed as during lockdown I wanted to get some serious bit of work done for a TTRPG and some novels I was working on. One I did work off went to work for a major company and while I was happy for him he simply couldn't do work for anyone else for various reasons.
Too many other ones I tried were good at wasting time because most were either hacks that used photoshop to trace images they googled and "Fantasy Art" is NEW stuff you might not have a direct reference for. OR ones with pro aspirations but there had been something circulating that if they helped an 'outsider' aka not an established publisher they could be "Blacklisted"....!? So I got lots of wasting of time by endless delays, shifting goalposts for 'rules' sudden inflation of prices way beyond anything reasonable.
Oh, and most could NOT or would NOT do backgrounds...!?
And yes I got real PO'd when I found this out since most had been begging for commissions too. But they wanted to do "Half nekkid elf chicks" that were TRACED from pictures so nothing that'd get published or it might get back to them. And whoa, asking NEW stuff like a lineup for a fantasy RPG that wasn't easy to trace without being obvious where they traced it from but still charged a premium...
Uh, AiARt is bad, then...?
Oh, yeah, "Haalp us! Thur Turkin mrrr Jurrb!"
AND something to know about the concept of "Professionalism" since most people who see themselves as "Artists" seem to think they have a magical exception to it... Someone hires you not because you can do something they can't but because you can do much better in a shorter amount of TIME or can do something they have stuff they need done but have to do OTHER stuff. Think a corporate CEO can't flip a burger or say "Can you first make sure you computer is turned on...?" etc. They pay you money to give themselves TIME. Most writer/storytellers are amateur illustrators who COULD do a decent cover but it'd take them 40-80 hours vs a real pro who could do it inside a day or an hour or so depending - so they pay a percentage to save the time and get good quality quickly. IF you WASTE weeks asking too many questions, making crazy "Rules", finding new ways to delay you waste the time so even IF eventually you plop out something kinda worth the $ or not worth demanding a refund its thanks for NOTHING.
And then on top of it they've only seemed "Liberal" for wanting an easy ride for themselves and s- ual fantasies. Before lockdown I saw college kids (IT, Business and yes graphic arts) going up to IRL laid off workers (think a cashier laid off for the autocheckout) "LLLurrrn tu KODE! Loser!"
So they thought they had a niche that couldn't be automated and were WRONG. There's still lots they can do but they need to be PROFESSIONAL.
Oh, and LLLurrrnnn tu do BACKGROUNDS. Try like "Joony Art" on YouTube.