The current model doesn't work for most less popular artists. All the artists who came up through the system and are now superstars were less popular once, and the promotional machinery had a big part in making them popular (and rich).

This is sort of how I feel about the traditional publishing industry. The way it's worked traditionally is that can't quite tell which authors are going to be big sellers, so you take a chance on a bunch, and the more successful ones subsidize the less successful. Now the successful ones for obvious reasons resent this and can shift to a self-publishing model. The problem is they never would have gotten successful had some publisher taken that initial chance on them. Where's the next generation coming from?