> Have you seen Patreon?

Patreon, Bandcamp and Tunecore collectively pay out about $25 million per month [1]. That's minimum wage for 21 000 people, assuming each artist gets an equal share (which they obviously don't). This doesn't seem like a lot to me.

[1]: http://musically.com/2015/02/16/what-are-musicians-making-fr...

I call that a good start. Society is still learning about this kind of funding model; there will be growing pains[1]. I find it incredible that Patreon is already allowing funding talented niche artists[2], important "not advertiser safe" social/political commentary[3], and other projects that would never make it past the usual funding filters.

Yes, it isn't a lot, but it's a good start that has already had some success. Hopefully it will continue to grow.

[1] e.g. the recent drama with Patreon changing their payment model

[2] https://www.youtube.com/user/oancitizen/videos

[3] https://www.youtube.com/user/ContraPoints/videos