I lose a bit of interest in artists who complain about not making money on people listening to their music. It then seems that they make music to make money, instead of making money because they make music.
Making music takes a lot of time, effort, and money. Promoting it (as opposed to just playing for you and whoever you live with) takes more of all three. The author specifically says he isn't talking about getting rich, only about making enough to continue doing it ("blue collar musician").
In fact he created and uses a service that gives away his music for free, in exchange for some info about the customer downloading it. "Complaining about not making money" really isn't a fair summary.
Maybe I'm looking at making music in the same fashion as open source programming. It also takes a lot of time, effort and some times money, and it does not give you any income directly. People may fork your code and you don't get any money from it. But it may also land you some programming gigs that can pay much more because of your effort.
Making a living out of making music is like making a living out of open source programming. If it does not pay enough, you have to either put more effort into it and make some sacrifices, or you have to play by some other mans notes/specs.
"Making a living out of making music is like making a living out of open source programming. If it does not pay enough, you have to either put more effort into it and make some sacrifices, or you have to play by some other mans notes/specs."
As a professional musician of the last 14 years, and a professional web developer of the last 2 years, I can tell you that this is not a good analogy.
There are many good analogies to be drawn between the music scene and the OSS scene, but the simple fact is that there is a fraction of a fraction of the money slushing around music that there is in software. There is a fraction of a fraction of the demand for talent in music as there is in software. It'd be like saying "I'm not making enough money as a Latin scholar, so I need to study harder." It's (for all intents) a dead industry, and no amount of individual effort is going to change that.
The fundamental paradigm of the music business - fans on one side, artists on the other, labels/gatekeepers in between - has to be changed. Neither Spotify nor iTunes nor any other offering that I know of out there do anything to advance that goal.
Yes, that was my point. Latin compares to music noone wants to hear or code noone wants to use.
Spotify and its likes is a place for people to discover and share music. If your music gives you fans, they will come to your concerts and buy your records.
People are used to test running stuff before they buy it these days. The chance of buying a new magazine is bigger if you can flip through it and see what it's about, than if it is wrapped in plastic. I look at Spotify as a legal place where you get some money from the test runners also, which is those who wouldn't have come to your concerts anyway.
Making music takes a lot of time, effort, and money. Promoting it (as opposed to just playing for you and whoever you live with) takes more of all three. The author specifically says he isn't talking about getting rich, only about making enough to continue doing it ("blue collar musician").
In fact he created and uses a service that gives away his music for free, in exchange for some info about the customer downloading it. "Complaining about not making money" really isn't a fair summary.