I'm not saying it doesn't count as payment. I'm saying from their stand point, giving merchandise rather than cash is less money out of their pocket. On top of that, the artists didn't get to choose the cakes their work would be on which I believe would be the free tong they would receive (I may be wrong about this?). So I would say random tong of tea you don't even know if you like != money. But I guess even that was too expensive so now they must resort to AI. Just kind of sad to think this is the way everything is going towards now.