I feel like these platforms are catering to a very particular kind of artist, an artist who has an audience that is willing to pay for content and not just consume it. How do you make people pay for something they never paid for in the past?

Most interesting works of art are not acknowledged monetarily at least initially. Money means making compromises and artists really don’t like making those. I suppose the Drip or Patreon artist is something YouTube helped create. An artist created by the audience for the audience. I just wonder how this all fits into the current needs of artists that are not musicians or YouTube stars.

Artists primarily need funding and space. They need a free studio to work in and work relief so that they have time to focus on their art. In Europe this often happens through government backed grants. Of course in the US there’s a lack of funded for artists. What if these companies used their position and money to lobby for arts funding from the government? Obviously this would be hard in the current administration but maybe this could also be done privately. Imagine if the government or a bunch of tech companies were paying artists a living wage to create public works or art, teach in schools, and design our cities.