[Dewie]

> 20 years ago that and thousands of others songs wouldn't even have been played anywhere and definitely not a million times.

Ironically that song was a hit exactly 20 years ago... so no, it managed to do just fine without a streaming service.

But yeah, I would never go back to the old model of radio and music only being on physical media. In fact, we can't at this point.

> Playing music is a joy, something you can enjoy whether you make money or not from it.

Other than an on average greater passion than in other professions, music sometimes has the potential to be "just a job". You might dream of coding the next greatest physics engine, but you are stuck making the same boring apps in a domain you don't care about. Similarly, you might dream of composing and playing rock operas but you are stuck doing crummy session work for R n B artists. It's not that R n B is bad, but not every musician is necessarily a person that has passion for all kinds of music and all kinds of gigs in the music industry.

But yeah, making a living from it is not a right, just like any profession.

[ThomPete]

But many musicians unfortunately argue as if it is.