[Draiken]

Why?

What is the harm in letting people live their lives producing art without a freaking OKR tracking their output?

I always find it fascinating how people assume that if you're not slaving away making someone else richer, it's a problem.

The argument is always something in the lines of "I'm paying for it". Well, we all know that if the only people actually making money out of our society paid their fair share, we'd be able to subsidize programs like these and much more without a problem.

People contribute to society in ways other than working. We simply choose to not value any of it in today's society.

It's not like these people are buying yachts, right? It feels so petty to me when we complain about helping out people with the bare minimum.

[nicbou]

The question is whether or not this money could serve Belgians better if spent elsewhere, even with the exact same goal of supporting artists. We measure outcomes because it ties up a finite resource.

[MichaelZuo]

How do you know they are in fact ‘producing art’ without keeping track via some system?

There are too many subsidy receivers for anyone to ever visit in their life, even if they spend 40 hours a week 50 weeks a year visiting them.

[zozbot234]

You can pay prizes after the fact for especially impressive art. Or even award grants in advance for especially impressive art-proposals. Similar to how we fund most academic research. That's likely to be a lot more effective than generalized subsidies if most art turns out to be just mediocre and forgettable.