Can someone tell me why models are so in demand? Can’t people remix existing photos and so on? There are tons of stock photos now too. It’s not like they need a new model for every time they show a watch.
Usage rights.
Time of models and photographers is cheap - for below supermodel catwalk class it is less than $150/h including the overhead. For catalog/commercial models $50/h including overhead is a good pay.
Buying out of usage rights is expensive. Worldwide buyout for a dozen images for 1 years could easily be $50,000. So instead they get those 12 images for that specific usage type (online) for the time rate + $1
I guess this is all dependent on how "in demand" models are...