As much as I reference his thoughts on such things a lot (that breakdown of record industry accounting is legendary, and I have been referencing it at other people regularly for about a decade), but I feel that he is ignoring some very important things here; mostly his own notoriety. His was a household name before the internet took off (In Utero did that; I was online at the time, or shortly there after, but otherwise it was middle-aged perves and the dudes who were getting their lunch money taken on a daily basis, who I had the, in retrospect lets call it foresight - because I totally wasn't dropping acid and playing D&D with them on the regular at all, to befriend). Sure, the internet will be a great marketing tool for anyone with that much name recognition, but just as much as the internet is able to connect people, it is also amazing at letting people be variously completely ignored (a tiny dot in a sea of artists on myspace/bandcamp/whatever's next) or mocked.... either way not getting paid at all (one of my former bands is the reason that my website gets 80% of the traffic it does, mostly from online radio, aggregator/leech sites and direct links to song downloads from various blogs; we've never seen a dime, not that we should, but case in point). It is better than the old way for sure, but the fundamental problem of the internet remains (there was a John Oliver bit that I can't locate now where he closes with something to the effect of, 'nobody wants to pay for anything on the internet'). It ignores that there is not, and never has been so far, anything like a meritocracy (if that is even possible in the case of something as subjective as musical appreciation).
It's all great that the internet has enabled Steve to tour "'The Balkans"' (new and improved; now includes Poland, Turkey and the Czech Republic) to find packed houses before they ever sold a record there, but even if one of my bands were huge on the internet, we wouldn't be able to go tour (there) due to not having the backing or the budget, but instead day jobs and other responsibilities. I've toured around a bit locally, but even going to the States is prohibitive ($800 to over 1K per head, including crew just in case they clap on stage during a song, for the permits).
I don't need to make money from my music. Sure, it would be nice if I could quit my job and do it full time, but I don't expect that at all, and haven't ever really tried particularly hard to chase that dream. I will continue to make music anyway, for the rest of my life as far as I am able, because otherwise I am going to f***ing murder somebody.
