You know these aren't representative at all. Almost every video gamer and guitar player earns nothing for their activities. Those millions of 0's won't be included in the guitar player salary graph.
Yes, I am aware of that. But you are just confirming my original observation here. You are acting like writers have no right to earn a decent living. Just because people might enjoy their work does not mean they should starve or be required to get some other job they don't enjoy to pay the bills. I get tired of that insinuation.
There are programmers who enjoy their work. They don't get told they have no right to the high salaries typical of programmers because they aren't suffering enough.
You're talking to the wrong person. I entirely agree with J. K. Rowling's right to earn millions from her writing. Because that's what people were willing to pay her for it. How else can we decide how to take money from one person and give it to another besides the market? Who do you want to pay that money? The taxpayer? Are you wanting free income for every author, artist, game player or hobbiest so they don't have to suffer unpleasant work? That might well be a valid idea but it's quite different from what you said. How do you "earn" a living when you're supported by charity?
Edit: What are you proposing instead of the current market situation? Do you want publishers to do something different? Governments? GoogFaceAzons? Readers? The general populace?
These are different problems. We're talking about authors and artists here. How and why should authors be paid for producing work that nobody wants? Should somebody else pay authors to pursue their hobby even when it doesn't provide much value to others?
i agree its hard to know what to pay. but i think you would rather have a contented artist producing work that you were indifferent to, than a highly paid patent troll, right?
> You are acting like writers have no right to earn a decent living
Correct.
Writers, programmers, football players all do not have a _right_ to earn money.
Instead, _people_ have a right to get a job to earn themselves a decent income to make a good living. If I choose to do something that doesn't result in a good enough income, then that's on me.
I tend to agree; the "right to earn a decent living" is inherently incompatible with market economy. On the market, you only have the right to accept or refuse a transaction.
On the other hand, I also believe everyone should have a right to decent life - that's why I'm for extensive social security, and would happily support basic income if someone figures out how to do it right.
I feel like people are sometimes using "right to earn a decent living" as a proxy for "right to have a decent life" in order to imply that they want to have people working for living. But I think those concepts need to be clearly separated, because the concept of "right to earn a decent living" directly interferes with self-regulatory capabilities of the market, which is why we want free markets in the first place.
There are programmers who enjoy their work. They don't get told they have no right to the high salaries typical of programmers because they aren't suffering enough.