> The number of ways to sustain yourself has significant increased in recent times
But so has the offer; anyone with a computer can create and publish music nowadays, which is both good and bad; good for the creative industry, bad for income for said creative industry because only a small percentage will ever see money. Same with the webcomics you noted; all you need is a computer with the worst drawing software to recreate something like XKCD. Everyone can do what they want / enjoy, but only a very, very small percentage of those will be able to sustain themselves off it - especially, or mostly, in the creative industry.
Do you have any evidence that there are less artists that can make a living in the current environment vs the old one? Is it possible there are more artists making a living in the current environment ?
For Patreon and Kickstarter to work, you have to be really lucky, or really popular already. It's not just enough to have a great idea. In a lot of ways, it reminds me of striking it rich on an App Store app: more luck than talent. For every successful fundraising campaign, there are thousands that go nowhere. But obviously we don't hear about the failures.
The number of ways to sustain yourself has significant increased in recent times, and some of those don't even use copyright as a mean for revenue. They are by nature immune to piracy.
Taken Patreon and kickstarter. You can not pirate art which has not been created. An artist can decide how much wages they demand rather than find an other job, which incidental is how the job market works. If they agree to a certain amount, they get paid and do the work agreed on. Everyone walks away happy, the artist got paid, and art is created.
What is getting harder to do is getting repeatable paid for work you done in the past. Most programmers do work for hire, and they survive quite well on not being paid for every copy of work they once made. So long there is a strong interest for new work to be created, old work will be what validate the artist current pay.
I know a web comic that update twice a month and the author current gets paid $5k a month to do so. No copyright is involved, no police and no SOPA. Just an artist and their fans, enabled to be sustained by the basic model of people wanting more art to be created and a way for that to happen. When we describe the future as "people doing things solely because they enjoy it" we limit the market available to artist to how it was done in the past, and it seems artist themselves are instead choosing to find new ways rather than to close up shops.