Fonts still being able to make money makes me think that all this AI art generation probably won't put artists out of a job. Surely we have enough fonts at this point to be a 'solved' problem, and yet somehow people keep paying for it.
Typography is a highly specialized field that requires a lot of semantic knowledge about how letters interact to execute well. It's a much harder problem (for humans and computers) than people realize.
my guess is that in the context of any project which is not super tiny, 1k$ is still very affordable
Yeah. If you're a big company and your designers/brand team are going for a specific look in your trade dress it may be worth it to license font(s) or even commission a new design. But with so much quality free stuff out there, it's hard to see it making sense for an individual or small business absent very unique requirements.
I guess it depends 1) where you are in the world and 2) how you define "super tiny".