[notatoad]

"This is bad for the consumer."

I don't see how that follows, except for the terrible logic of less profit for the musician is automatically bad for the consumer because people will just stop making music if they can't get rich off it. It looks like they're fighting back against exclusives and bullshit restrictions like "you can stream the first 5 songs, but if you want more you have to buy the album for $14.99", just the sort of thing everybody was complaining about two weeks ago when amazon launched their streaming service.

I understand that musicians like money. I can empathize with that, i like money too. But trying to frame it as good for the consumer is silly.

[wwweston]

> except for the terrible logic of less profit for the musician is automatically bad for the consumer because people will just stop making music if they can't get rich off it.

It's not terrible logic, it's fundamentally sound. It's just not absolute.

That is, people won't "just stop" across the board. But the harder we make it to make money from making music itself, the more time would-be music makers will have to spend finding some other way to make money to finance their life.

So you lose music at the margins, particularly music that requires a higher level of investment to produce, particularly from those who have less disposable time/money.

[GhotiFish]

I don't agree with that. I like artists, not businessmen. Turning artists into businessmen, or simply making businessmen don the apparel of an artist is not "good for the consumer", it's not "fundamentally sound" either.

[namlem]

Most indie musicians can scarcely eek out a middle class lifestyle. Only a lucky few ever get rich off it.

[notatoad]

but plenty of musicians manage to become rich (often becoming not-indie musicians in the process). There's lots of musicians, they can't all be successful. A musicians failure to become rich should not be taken as a sign that youtube should give them more money, it should be taken as a sign that their music don't have a broad enough appeal to make them rich.

[crucialfelix]

most indie musicians are WELL below middle class.

[ulisesrmzroche]

No that's not true.

[crucialfelix]

well given that most indie musicians have jobs that allow them to support their music career, then I guess you are right.

but among professional full-time music only indie musicians - the majority are below middle class. they do not own a home, they have debt.

a minority have achieved enough success to live a normal middle class lifestyle.

[ulisesrmzroche]

It's a marketing problem. Not luck.