Except almost everyone can produce things. You have to produce things people want. Not only that, you need to find the people who want your stuff, especially if its niche.

Yes, I'm a highly paid software engineer. The people who created the company I work for are, however, far better paid.

There's nothing stopping me from quitting and building my own business and selling the software I produce. I have the funds to seed my own startup, so that's not even an issue. That's a shitload of work though, even if I hire people to handle the individual parts. Very quickly I'll be spending more time running a business, finding customers, marketing, dealing with legal crap, etc, than I will producing software. I can also produce software, stick it on github and hope for the best, but there's countless people who do that for shits and giggles (and for free).

Distribution, logistic, and those "middlemen" actually do a lot of work to link the product with the customers. Sure, there's parasites in the middle, organizations that just take licenses and shifts them around without doing anything. You can absolutely make a case to cut those off. But the orgs/software that link products directly to customers who want said products generate tremendous value, and it's often a lot harder to do than produce the good in the first place.

And I value the creators of Spotify who create good software and a great infrastructure for the service they're offering. I think we should move away from this sleazy consumer mindset that the creators of Spotify should not be rewarded for the service they're offering.

are you under the impression that engineers at spotify are currently going hungry and working minimum wages? As developers we are already ridiculously overpaid compared to artists. We are the ones who benefit from the shit salaries that musicians make, which is of course why people on this website don't want to hear anything about creators bargaining. It's the people here who benefit from the status quo.

> We are the ones who benefit from the shit salaries that musicians make

Not really. We are just being paid enough so that we do not leave for somewhere else.

The ones who really benefit are the shareholders.

Coincidentally, the same people who didn't do any of the work.

>The ones who really benefit are the shareholders. Coincidentally, the same people who didn't do any of the work.

This is how capitalism works though. There's no way Spotify can be expected to fundamentally change the economic system they exist in. Reversing that is heading into the realm of revolution.