Yeah. There seems to also be the implicit assumption that (recorded) pop music, whilst only a relatively recent phenomenon, is here to stay. It isn't. It had a golden age after recording and reproduction technology became cheap enough to own and before streaming services came along, gave us too much choice and siloed our tastes. I don't think I'd change much — I mainly listen to 'weird' stuff that probably wouldn't have existed, let alone be discoverable, without such services — but the pop era does seem to be over. No one cares about 'the charts' anymore. In my parents' day it was a primary cultural reference point that seemingly everyone followed; now almost no one I know would be able to tell me what's in the top ten at the moment.

it seems to me the problem you're pointing to, and scoping to music

it's actually much more persvasibe and happening to pretty much all culture

I refer to the siloing of our tastes; or rather to how we can now develop rarer tastes by means of massively increased connectivity

so it's not just pop music, but all of what it means to be "mainstream culture" that's weirdly getting siloed and more rarified

True. It’s not just in music. There is almost no such thing as mainstream culture anymore — it’s exciting for individuals, but also quite worrying, especially when it comes to politics and description of factual events. No wonder democracy seems to be steadily going down the pan.

Tastes may be siloed but they're also a lot more concentrated. Recorded pop music is bigger than ever. In an environment where recommendation services drive a lot of discovery, music is more winner take all than ever.

Josephine Baker was a star. Bach and Mozart were stars. Pythagoras was more famous for music than math, during his lifetime (well over two thousand years ago). The decline of a particular business model is a legit observation but it doesn’t change this fundamental aspect of music.

Pop evolved from music hall and vaudeville, and all of those featured musicians who were very much not "low-paid background music systems."

They very much were; there is a reason why the vaudevillians were all poor immigrants and why much of the modern entertainment industry was established by entrepreneurs/conmen running away to California to escape Thomas Edison.

> there is a reason why the vaudevillians were all poor immigrants

Same reason so many pro athletes now are poor immigrants.