You're right it's about paying customers. No one is going to waste time campaigning against a $1.99 squid game knockoff on Steam if it uses AI (many are just Unity assets flips already).
The backlash I've seen is against large studies leaving AI slop in 60+ dollar games. Sure, it might just be some background textures or items at the moment, but the reasoning is that if studies know they can get away with it, quality decline is inevitable. I tend to agree. AI tooling is useful but it can't be at the expense of the product quality.
A smart loud minority is screaming a lot but actual paying customers don't care as long as the game is not trash.