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> that it's not actually very easy for me to imagine a coherent model for music that would work be equitable for all artists in the world today, given the other changes that've taken place.

I know a way: universal basic income.

Which is coincidentally how you can also fund open source, and serious science (as opposed to the scam-filled journal/grant system we have today)

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But how do you allocate more capital to more successful people so that you drive effort towards what people need / enjoy the most ? If there's no incentive to do popular music, then we could all do shitty music ?

That’s misunderstanding the human spirit in my opinion.

Maybe some would coast and be happy with whatever the basic income is, but I suspect many others would strive and do more. If not for survival and the privilege of having food + a roof (like it is now), then mostly for the satisfaction.

I don’t subscribe to the theory that giving everyone a basic income would instantly turn everyone into a couch potato. That’s just not how a healthy person thinks/functions. At least not in the long term.

Not over night, but there is long term risk.

First, I admit, I believe in certain stereotypes that X people are more hardworking than Y people. (On average)

I believe so, because I believe that upbringing has tremendous impact of how an adult lives, commits and achieves things, and different cultures have different styles of life, and consequently guide kids differently.

UBI most definitely would not change things over night, but it could (I mean that it’s probable) start the shift towards “couch patato” like end of culture spectrum.

We've 100xed the amount of production per human. Surely we can afford to risk some couch potatoes bringing that down to 80x if it makes everyone happier.

IF it makes everyone happier. That's a pretty big 'if'. I would be all for it in that case, but my intuition is that the results would be more mixed. Worth exploring for sure nonetheless.

I agree that people have creative impulses, and not everyone wants to be a couch potato. However, I imagine a lot of people would rather noodle around on a guitar (or try to be a YouTuber, or mess with RPGmaker, or write a blog, etc) than haul trash all day. If we subsidize that, we might end up flooded with physical trash and digital trash.

We could pay "garbage hauling" more to incentivize. Or maybe it will accelerate R&D to design robots to do that tedious job instead?

I really don't think that matters. Music popularity isn't a meritocracy today, I don't see how it could be worse.

State sponsored art has been tried in my country and it led to entire warehouses filled with shitty art.

People glorify artists.

State-sponsored art is also an ongoing reality in many other countries, including mine, with much more positive results. What’s your point?

What music do people "need/enjoy" the most? Is popular music more good, is unpopular music more "shitty"?

I think the misconception here is that you can easily categorize and find quantifiable qualities for things as subjective as music or art.

otoh we could do away with a lot of the commercially over-hyped populist bullshit

Your comment sounds elitist but maybe I'm wrong -- how do we judge what's populist bullshit and what's rightly acclaimed?

you're probably right, there's no accounting for taste.

Read about how Intermittent Du Spectacle and Sacem/SACD work.

Very broad strokes, IDS is basic income, you have to fulfil a number of gigs to renew a fixed guaranteed income for the following year. Sacem is more or less proportional to success.

Not a perfect system by any means but it's something.

(sorry, links in French)

https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermittent_du_spectacle

https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soci%C3%A9t%C3%A9_des_auteur...

You don't. The idea itself is deeply flawed. Just let people do the work.

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