You do other things to make money and continue to make art for it's own sake. If you get to the point that others want your art you get commissions. Just like most artists in the current system.

Alright, so then you're NOT going to pay artists for their labor?

In the current system, artists might work for many years on a single work, or work many years perfecting their craft before anyone wants to pay for their work. Copyright gives them a way to earn money in the future that compensates them for the work they did in the past. It incentivizes creativity. Don't get me wrong, I don't think copyright is perfect, but you really ought to think more about the system you're proposing, because it's not making much sense.

Unfortunately, it’s hard to explain these things to techies who only see the world in their one-sided startupy way. The fact that there’re starving creatives who have already been massively marginalized by the likes of Spotify of this world, means nothing to these tech workers who only see everything as numbers, or a “business model” to “validate”.

(full disclosure, I’m a techie who’s gradually woken up to the idea that the tech might just be the most abused way to exploit people)

I'm in games, where art and tech crossroad. I 1000% empathize for the fact that art exploits, abuses, and underpays even if they at times may be doing more work than a junior web dev.

It's a bit ironic, because a lot of tech offers partial compensation in stock. Something else that really doesn't happen in games unless you work for like, the 3-4 largest studios. So they should at least understand that your compensation is not all based on labor for time worked.

True that! And game dev is a notoriously brutal industry in general, sadly