It looks about 40% lower, not a few percent. I’m not denying that the recorded music industry has been totally overcome, and in some senses they’re lucky to have anything at all from Spotify, but almost everyone in society wants recorded music and the revenue side of it is dying, indeed, almost completely killed except for those at the very top of the pyramid. This hasn’t happened in the same way in other intellectual industries. It is how it is, but it’s a shame that something we all want has to be expensively done and then given away basically for free.

40% lower from the peak, which led to an even larger decline with the birth of Napster.

Ignoring 1994-2000, revenue is roughly inline with where it’s been the last 30 years.

And music companies (labels and publishers) are seeing record profits.

I mean this is what live music is for. Concerts have always been the best way to make money.

The Beatles didn’t seem to think so.

Ah yes, let's use the most successful band of all time as the example not the exception

They did say always! I’m pointing out it’s not quite always.

I can go to my basement, lay down a track on a free daw that comes with my audio interface with an arbitrary number of tracks if I so please, then take that material and distribute it around the world on the internet.

This is like an unprecedented golden age for the amateur musician. You can now record and distribute on your own and make some money off of it too. Music was never this easy to make, record, and distribute as it is today.

How much money have you made doing this recently?

In theory through services like bandcamp infinitely more money than if I was passing around CDs or tapes.

What about in reality through services like Bandcamp?