[tsunagatta]

> When people go to sites like YouTube and Spotify, it's very difficult to find an artists best work, these sites do everything to steer listeners towards big industry music, rather than helping independents to grow.

I dunno, personally, I was introduced to some of my favorite underground artists purely through Youtube recommendations. People like Sewerslvt, The Caretaker, Ecco2k, Astrophysics, Kero Kero Bonito, and some dark ambient projects like TOWERS/TOWERS. Maybe now that AI’s out there this won’t be possible anymore but for the time being at least, I feel like music discovery on YT is pretty good.

[winternett]

I find most of my music on YouTube as well, and many artists are making ground, but they hit a ceiling. I'm an indie musician myself, so I'm speaking from experience. When you see an indie musician's music on YouTube, 9 times out of 10, they're paying money to promote it on the platform. Streaming sites pay very little, so very few artists make that promo money back until they go on tour, and even then, unless you're selling major volumes of tickets and albums, as a musician you only break even if at all behind the scenes.

The thing is, for musicians, if they spend a lot of time on their work, they don't get paid anywhere near what they should, even after years of work, unless they break into the level of being on TV and Radio, most artists don't have health care or even enough to pay rent.

Just because we may know about certain musicians, doesn't mean they are doing well off of their music, tons of musicians secretly have day jobs, while the tech industry makes billions. Modern musicians often sign record contracts and find themselves in a lifetime of debt before they can even earn their first check, this is what most of their listeners don't know.