[repsilat]

> figure out another way to reward creators

It should be noted that the current system is working pretty damn well. More content is being created in just about every medium than ever before, and more people are consuming it. Maybe the rewards don't go as much to the artists as they should, but the money flows towards the sorts of media that people actually want to consume, which is something that other systems would find difficult to emulate well.

> most go without so the few left have reason to spend.

I'm not sure this is true. Market segmentation is very successful -- if you don't see a movie in the theatre, you might see it on DVD or Netflix, and if you can't afford that then you can see it on TV later on (and pay for it by watching advertisements.) Ditto music with albums, itunes/spotify/whatever and the radio.

> educational materials

The market hasn't done very well here in the past, I'll grant, but this one is definitely sorting itself out, too. Free textbooks are not popular yet, nor are sites like Coursera, EdX and Udacity, but they're growing.

[tomp]

> It should be noted that the current system is working pretty damn well. More content is being created in just about every medium than ever before, and more people are consuming it.

I don't think that either of these (more content created, and more content consumed) is because the system is working well, but despite the system being horrible. The Internet and digital media enabled many more producers, many more consumers, and it stole power from the intermediaries/distributors . Before the Internet, the distributors of media, you know, actually distributed the content. Nowadays, they only act as gatekeepers and (copyright-enabled) rent-seekers.