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> Connection Became Commodified ... Music is now background noise It's rather the music itself which became a commodity, and it's not mainly background noise, but is reduced to a function (support certain moods, etc.). This becomes obvious when looking at the evolving statistics. More and more people just select and listen to anonymous playlists and don't care who played, composed or produced the music thei're listening to. They buy and consume music like water or potatoes. > The financial reality for modern musicians is grim That's it, and this development started at least thirty years ago. I remember well that the opening acts at our concerts were increasingly being replaced by DJs, and within a short time, more and more live gigs were being replaced entirely by DJs (people didn't care much). Studio gigs had long been hard to come by at that point. Today, more and more stars are going on stage without a band or even their “singing” is a playback. Spotify and the like have also wiped out the middle class, so that today it's mostly only the big stars who are known by name. > AI Accelerates Everything The market in which musicians could earn money was already broken long before AI. The record monopolists, who repeatedly claim to represent the interests of musicians, were at the forefront of filling their own pockets with services such as Spotify, and their actions against AI companies are also more than flimsy, as it is more likely that they want to use this technology to improve their own pensions and increase their margins even further by no longer needing composers or studios. According to the well-known Deezer study, 97% of people can no longer distinguish AI from human music anyway. And still we will continue to make music, and as before, barely anyone will notice. |