> You've ignored the fact that discovery is now a new service component that really didn't exist before. We can tag music and artists and we can automatically discover related music and artists very easily. All the major services do this. Think of an expanded and federated (all the way back to the artist) open source version of this.

This is a good point. We have gone from diffusion-constrained to search-constrained. No clue what to make of that. I would submit to you that the amount of time people have to consume art has not changed, and that improved search now pushes people to consume the globally best art rather than niche content. Are there any domains or platforms that you think do a good job of surfacing specific niche content? Or am I misunderstanding your point?

>There's no reason to think that the previous model somehow produced the most efficient way of "determining who people listen to." It was almost certainly suboptimal. It's no surprise then that this suboptimal model was more or less copied onto the internet and all new players bought out so no new model could be revealed.

It's not about efficiency. I think the current system is more efficient (hence economies of scale). It's just that the rent extraction/profits are concentrated among the platform owners rather than spread out among local venue owners and artists.

> The lack of available artistry and market for it extends through multiple levels, and in this case, right into the software stack that _should_ exist for artists to self publish and for listeners to automatically discover.

I agree it should be possible, the problem is setting up the incentives correctly.

edit: clarity