That's exactly what he said. People made money for -performing- music, and performing artists still make money for doing that.

Not exactly. Before recorded music, a live band (or one man show!) was the only game in town. It was either that or silence. Everywhere that wanted to fill that silence had to hire musicians.

It was not "that" or silence. You're not considering that learning to play a musical instrument was itself more common. Performing music was a community activity people used to entertain themselves; the hiring of musicians was for the wealthy aristocracy.

Indeed, you see examples of people singing in the parlor, or a guest or host playing an instrument for everyone else after dinner and at parties in many books and movies.

The existence of DIY approaches was and is real, but:

1) it's a marginal point in response to observations about the meteor-strike level of impact the invention and spread of recorded music had on the market for live performers. The difference between a past with no widespread recording/playback tech and a present where recorded music is widespread and came to be treated as essentially free is so great that invoking the past seems hazardous even if ...

2) we actually have an accurate understanding of it. For my part, I'm pretty skeptical about the idea that paid performances were largely absent in common life before the 20th century.

3) Carefully consider your last sentence there. What exactly was the wealthy aristocracy buying when they hired? Why wouldn't a community or individual with modest wealth want to buy that if they could? Why would it be priced out of reach?

"Performing music was a community activity people used to entertain themselves"

It still is, among the people I know/grew up with.

See:

https://festival.oldsongs.org/

"In addition to three concerts there are over 100 daytime workshops, dances or performances."

Maybe hire is the wrong idea. I meant more generally, “provide a venue for...”.

Not true in the USA. Thousands of towns had multiple amateur concert bands during the 19th century, and band shells are still left over in many parks, although of course they are seldom used for their original purpose.

> Before recorded music, a live band (or one man show!) was the only game in town.

Don't forget the orchestra. Unless you consider it to belong the "live band" category :-)

> Absolute nonsense.

I think the point was poorly put. I suspect most musical experiences throughout history were either not paid for or paid for voluntarily, not as a condition of access. I also suspect that there is a strong tradition throughout history of professional musicians but that the majority of musicians then (and now) are not professional but amateur (in the positive sense of that word).

> Plato complained in his writings about popular musicians holding unruly concerts.

Did he talk about how they were paid? otherwise I fail to see the relevance.

> The invention of recorded music was a disaster for professional musicians, because it rendered most of them unemployed.

That is an interesting claim, I am prepared to believe it, but I would like to see evidence supporting it. I would suspect that the money to be made by playing music created by other people was reduced. I would also suspect that this stimulated the creation of new songs and musical styles since new copyrightable work became a much more important means of earning income from music.

> People of the past had far more limited access to music, but they weren't stupid or undiscerning - they wanted to hear the best possible music and were willing to pay for it. Busking is probably as old as currency and remains a perfectly reasonable way of making a living.

The modern innovation on busking is platforms like patreon. I pay a monthly amount to a musician I have spent innumerable hours listening to while working. I suspect that payments for access to live performances and voluntary support of musicians you like is the future of musical income. Musical copyright stimulates the creation of some types of music and suppresses other types. It also primarily benefits larger, older, entrenched entities at the expense of suppressing newer, smaller and more innovative entities.

Why were Mozart, Bach, Etc. all relatively poor then? Even the greatest musicians of their age were not wealthy. Compare their incomes to a Taylor Swift or Led Zeppelin and the difference is insane. The last 70 or so years have been the only period where artists incomes rivaled that of land/factory owners.

Bach wasn't relatively poor - he was comfortably middle class, as it was then, with a secure job and extra income from a concert series he set up. (One of the first in the world.)

Mozart was relatively poor because he was terrible with money. Some of his contemporaries, especially opera composers, did very nicely indeed - something which continued to be true for centuries.

Handel was easily the equivalent of a modern multimillionaire. Some performers and/or composers - Paganini, Liszt, various opera singers - earned far more for each performance than modern artists do.

If Taylor Swift only gave concerts to hundreds of people at a time, she'd be poor too. Mozart never had studio deals or CD distribution, or endorsement deals--at least not in the global stage.

Yes.

But the point was that Mozart didn't need to be rich to do great music.

Whether he deserved to be rich is another question (more related to morale than economics).

This is the intro to Gradus ad Parnassum by Johann Joseph Fux (1725) [1], the textbook used to teach music in Mozart and Beethoven's time:

Aloys. — Perhaps the hope of future riches and possessions induces you to choose this life? If this is the case, believe me you must change your mind; not Plutus but Apollo rules Parnassus. Whoever wants riches must take another path.

Joseph. — No, certainly not. Please be sure that I have no other object than to pursue my love of music, without any thought of gain. I remember also that my teacher often told me one should be content with a simple way of life and strive rather for proficiency and a good name than for wealth, for virtue is its own reward.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Joseph_Fux#Gradus_ad_Pa...

The number of business owners whose wealth is far greater than the richest artists has roughly kept pace with changes in artist's wealth. While Mozart was relatively poor compared to his patrons, Taylor Swift is quite poor compared to Spotify founder Daniel Ek.

Indeed, also churches had music, and education included music. Bach was an employee of a city, assigned to work for the local church, which included composing, managing the choir, teaching, and performing at services. He quibbled with his employers about pay.

Music education is still an OK income source.

Do coders get paid every time their code fires? No? Oh then musicians and artists can join the rest of society in not getting paid per usage of an item. Creatives just get greedier and greedier. No other industry gets paid the way that they do, not teaching, not labor, not babysitting, not management, not politics, none. If you want to get paid, perform or provide an object to purchase.

> Do coders get paid every time their code fires?

That's what the SaaS model was invented for and why you increasingly can't use software without a subscription anymore.

I would never use SaaS. Or at least, I'd never base a business on using it. Because you have no recourse if the price increases dramatically (e.g., Google map API) or the API goes away (not at all uncommon).

That's like those people who disable JavaScript in their browser. Yes you can get through life without using SaaS and you will likely be fine. But you can also join the 21st century and get on with your life.

I like that I can pay for software based on how much I use it rather than ponying up hundreds of thousands of dollars once. A lot of the cheaper end SaaS-es could never ever be sustainable without the monthly subscription business model. Particularly because they themselves use SaaS and have to keep the lights on.

Imagine if isntead of paying a monthly fee to use whatever services companies use to run their company they'd be required to build everything in house? Ain't nobody got the funds for that.

Yes, I get that. And maybe it works out OK, most of the time. But I've surely seen lots of horror stories on HN.

Also, building in-house isn't that expensive. Or at least, not compared to developing in-house. I'm not all that technical, and I setup my own Docker registry, for example.

I am one of those people who only allow minimal required JavaScript :)

I think it’s about opportunity cost. It’s often cheaper to outsource everything not-core and focus your time and attention on the things only you can do. Where “you” is whatever you consider the relevant company/team/businessunit.

Can I build a website? Yes. Can I save money by paying someone to build a website and focus instead on filling it with great content? You bet.

Same applies for SaaS. It would be a waste of time/money/effort to build my own ConvertKit for example

There's a huge difference between outsourcing and SaaS. Sure, it's cheaper to pay someone to build your website. That's outsourcing. But then you run it on a server that you lease. If it's running on something managed by a third party, it can just disappear. And that's SaaS.

There's also the issue of sharing sensitive data with SaaS providers. Just think of all the data leaks that's caused. The Squarespace heatmap stuff we just saw. The deals between Google and phone manufacturers. The behavioral-ad-delivery morass.

Re ConvertKit, the alternative would look like "git clone foo".

A vanishingly small percentage of artists make a living from art. An even smaller percentage of artists get rich. A bit like not every developer is making $120k+...

Yes. This is the key point. And various commenters have made it here, in one way or another.

Also, as others have argued, only a vanishingly small percentage of musicians have ever made a living from their art. Even during the peak of the 40s-80s boom in recorded music. At least, if you include everyone that others have cared to listen to.

That is, you only made it if you signed with a record label that didn't screw you. And through graft or luck, hit the charts. Those are some serious filters.

Indeed, one could argue that direct marketing via the Internet has allowed more artists to earn at least some income from their music. If in no other way than getting paid for performances. It's just that the chances of making it big are lower.