Re:Think piracy is killing the music industry? This chart su...
by beloch on Tuesday October 08, 2013 @06:50PM
(#6518367)
Grad students looking to do research for a living face a bleak existence. There are very few decent paying jobs with security available if they can't land one of the very few tenured professor positions. Fail to do that, and it's a nomadic life, moving from post-doc to post-doc until they give up and get out of academia for the sake of their family.
Acting is almost a pyramid scheme. A small number of actors at the apex make millions in Hollywood, but it's hand-to-mouth for the majority. Most actors can't even rely on their profession for a living!
You can pen a best-selling novel and still need a day-job. Few authors make a living by writing. Only a steady stream of best-seller after best-seller will let you start to rely on your writing. Forget about making a living off of magazine short-stories and articles!
You should get my point by now. There are many noble professions that add to the knowledge and culture of humanity that must be done out of love, because the money is piss poor. Most of these professions require tremendous investments in terms of time and money to get good at. The music industry was an odd beast. It never really invested money freely in artists, preferring to put them into debt so that they would have to be wildly successful before ever seeing a cent of return. It was sort of like supplying student-loans to grad students with the caveat that wages would be garnished until they leave academia. Without the record labels, musicians are largely in the same boat as actors, authors, etc.. Namely, they have to invest in themselves out of love for their art, or forget about it.
The notion that one has to suffer for art or science is not new. What bothers me is that we so blindly accept egregious rewards being handed out for the dubious virtue of "being close to the money". Bankers, traders, managers, etc.. People who are close to the money still make out like bandits despite the fact that their jobs are really about supporting the people who make and do. You can't fault them for being greedy and taking what they're able to. That's what anyone would do in their position. We should, however, be angry with ourselves for granting them that power.
Acting is almost a pyramid scheme. A small number of actors at the apex make millions in Hollywood, but it's hand-to-mouth for the majority. Most actors can't even rely on their profession for a living!
You can pen a best-selling novel and still need a day-job. Few authors make a living by writing. Only a steady stream of best-seller after best-seller will let you start to rely on your writing. Forget about making a living off of magazine short-stories and articles!
You should get my point by now. There are many noble professions that add to the knowledge and culture of humanity that must be done out of love, because the money is piss poor. Most of these professions require tremendous investments in terms of time and money to get good at. The music industry was an odd beast. It never really invested money freely in artists, preferring to put them into debt so that they would have to be wildly successful before ever seeing a cent of return. It was sort of like supplying student-loans to grad students with the caveat that wages would be garnished until they leave academia. Without the record labels, musicians are largely in the same boat as actors, authors, etc.. Namely, they have to invest in themselves out of love for their art, or forget about it.
The notion that one has to suffer for art or science is not new. What bothers me is that we so blindly accept egregious rewards being handed out for the dubious virtue of "being close to the money". Bankers, traders, managers, etc.. People who are close to the money still make out like bandits despite the fact that their jobs are really about supporting the people who make and do. You can't fault them for being greedy and taking what they're able to. That's what anyone would do in their position. We should, however, be angry with ourselves for granting them that power.