[Zababa]

I don't think that's true these days. While we may not have that much more free time compared to our ancestors, we have access to way more things. There are wealth of free knowledge online, wealth of free tools to do digital painting, digital music and things like that. There are also more forms of art and expression than before. Art has never been so democratized.

But living from your art is still hard, because you need an audiance. It's always easier to find someone that needs you first and then work for him (getting a "regular" job) than producing something for a public that you don't yet have.

There's also the fact that lots of artists don't seem to want to do "things that don't scale" (in reference to http://paulgraham.com/ds.html). For example, I have a few friends that want to work in the film industry. A minority of them do things like film clips for not well known rappers, take pictures at weddings, stuff like that. The majority just try to make a film. The first group can get more experience this way, meet professionals, get connections, see if that fields is really what they like. The second can't, and don't even make money.