[joe_the_user]

I've heard the claim you have a whole new crop of musicians making reasonable money with tours and Patreon. I'm skeptical - any references for how many.

It's a bit different but I watch a lot of D&D advice youtube channels. The single most popular of them (the entertaining Ginnie D) can make a bare living at it but nearly everyone else has a day job. It's hard to believe the situation for musicians would have a different distribution of results (money made from fame just naturally follows a Pareto distribution).

[shmel]

I don't know if it is really comparable. I listen to a lot of music, if any of my top 50 favorite musicians tour in my city, I don't hesitate to pay 50 quid for a ticket. For some I am willing to fly out. If Spotify didn't exist, I'd have bought many albums.

But I can hardly think of a YT channel I like enough to pay money. I guess I bought a couple of online courses made by relatively popular YT creators, but that's about it.