Let's draw another circle: things you make when 'financial obligations' are not a concern. Where does that intersect? Why aren't we drawing it? How much science was done by 'gentlemen scientists' who never worried about money? How much more would we know if that one person who could have figured out electromagnetism in 1400 didn't have to plow fields all day?
That is a really great place for you to be in! Where code useful and thus valuable, there is a lot in that intersection. Unfortunately where art is concerned, that intersection may be an empty set.
I personally derive a lot of satisfaction from other people enjoying using the programs I write, and I love it when they make money using it. (Many have described to me how D gave them a competitive advantage.) Many give back by funding our annual D conference and providing funding for several of our critical staff members.
I wrote Empire for my personal satisfaction eons ago, and when other people copied it and spread it around, I discovered that it was a lot of fun to get unsolicited emails from people who liked playing it and wanted to let me know. I still get them regularly!
Do you actually know any artists or musicians? Any of them that are successful? What you described wouldn't be "selling out," it'd be success. Selling out is the food service job they do to pay their rent, or the lessons they teach, etc. The person you were responding to was pointing out that it's not likely that there is a market for everyone's art, even if everyone was true to their own creative vision.
Yeah but that wasn't the context the person you were responding to was using it in. By your own example, Nirvana doesn't make any sense as they were tremendously successful doing their thing
Oh, it certainly is the context. Nirvana had its beginnings and appeal by being uninterested in success and only played to a niche as "their" group. When Nirvana suddenly became wildly successful, that group felt betrayed.
Nirvana is the perfect example of what I was talking about.
It’s almost like the idea of “making a living” is what needs disrupting the most. I didn’t ask to be here, and it’s kind of a shit deal for most folks the way things work now. “How many Einsteins” etc.
If the art I’m interested in making doesn’t fit into this “utilitarian” monetary income model, it means that I can only pursue art in my “spare time”, outside of a necessary job and (for lots of us) family obligations. I guess I could become an art star, or a viral sensation, but we all know how unlikely that is for any one person. There’s not much middle ground.
The thing that we have to acknowledge as a culture is that we don’t generally value art, or highly-specific research avenues, or much of anything that isn’t “productive” in the most myopic sense. That’s a cultural choice, and it’s a bad decision. It fits in well with our naked pursuit of short-term optimization at the expense of everything else though, so at least we’re consistent. Yay.
Look at the immensity of the music business, hollywood, books, furniture, buildings, landscaping, toys, the shape of my desk phone, and we pay plenty for it! I look around my office and see the work of artists in most everything in it.