I’m not a lawyer but I think if the image was free when you used it, you’d have more leeway to change the image if it goes to paid. The bigger problem is people who think they can use any image they want and use images that were never free to use.

If Medium paid the way it used to in the past, I might spend the time to create images using AI tools. But with the massive drop in pay, I can’t justify the time it would take on top of the time it takes to write.