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Report: Midjourney Business Breakdown & Founding Story

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Have a different take on our research? Want to contribute to this piece? Send our research team a note. Email us Creators and advertisers are constantly in need of image content, and supply has grown to meet that demand; the volume of image content has steadily climbed for more than a decade. The number of photos shared over social media has tripled since 2013, with 14.1 billion images shared per day across WhatsApp, Snapchat, Facebook, and Instagram as of October 2023. Even on video-first platforms like YouTube and TikTok, creators and advertisers rely on thumbnail images to get users to click on the video. Stock photography is one commonly used solution for creators and advertisers looking for images to help attract traffic or views. The stock photography market was valued at $3.3 billion in 2020. Free stock image sites host millions of photos — for example, Unsplash hosted 3 million photos as of October 2023. Meanwhile, Shutterstock, one of the largest paid stock photography sites,

Thesis The number of photos shared over social media has tripled since 2013, with 14 billion images shared per day across WhatsApp, Snapchat, Facebook, and Instagram as of May 2025. Even on video-first platforms like YouTube and TikTok, content creators rely on thumbnail images to get users to click on the video. Creators and advertisers are constantly in need of image content, and supply has grown to meet that demand. Stock photography is one commonly used solution for advertisers looking for images to help attract traffic or views. The stock photography market was valued at $3.3 billion in 2

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