100% agree. Years ago I signed up for Getty images (royality based) back when they were competing with Fotolia (royalty free) before they were bought by Adobe, and actually clicked through the shopping cart to see how much it would be to license a picture of some nice autumn leaves for a billboard or a calendar. It was an insane amount in the hundreds of dollars, and it was time limited, and only for a limited run (if you used them for example, a calendar), the usage rights were insane. And if you wanted the full resolution it was something like $1,000+ dollars. Our minds were boggled. We honestly legitamately thought Getty images was some kind of money laundering operation. It was cheaper to hire a photographer to get the pictures you want, rather than license them from Getty.
Yes they have some nice rare photographs of political events (wars, earthquake response, important cultural news photos) but they are insane for thinking their entire catalog is deserving of royalties and time/run limitations. The only thing Getty did was convince me that copyright needs to be heavily reformed. (The photographer isn't paying royalties to all the people who made the objects in the photo, yet they're asking for royalities just for taking the photo)