About half of my articles use my own photos or photos from a site where I bought the rights to use them. Once that site changed their terms, I haven’t been able to continue using images from there as often. However, there’s a handy “donate” button on the typical sites like Unsplash and Pexels these days. You can’t tell from looking whether or not people are paying for royalty free images and shouldn’t assume that every author here that uses them isn’t compensating the photographers.

Further, the art and photography industries aren’t problem-free, but there is certainly NOT an endemic expectation for artists and photographers to work for free. When you hire a photographer or buy a painting, there is a clear, collective expectation that money will change hands.