The Ghosts in the Machine – Spotify's plot against musicians

harpers.org

48 points·neom··4 comments

[dupe]

Earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42461530

Every creative industry seems to be in a death spiral right now. More media is being produced than ever before, but very few people seem to be able to create art while sustaining a comfortable living. Online media had a brief period where independent artists thrived like never before, but now that the big labels have once again captured the media outlets the squeeze has continued. Gen AI seems to only be adding an accelerant to the equation.

I'm not sure what the fate of art is going to be in our capitalist societies if the startup capital required to become a self sustaining artist becomes completely unreachable for anyone without high level connections.

> More media is being produced than ever before, but very few people seem to be able to create art while sustaining a comfortable living.

These are two halves of the same coin.

For a little bit there it was a growth market. But ultimately human beings only have so much time to fill in their days. In the last decade we have reached a point in society where the typical person is listening to music in one form or another for every nearly waking hour (if they want to).

It's now a zero-sum game.

Without disputing anything you said, it’s worth noting that the record industry has spent the last century trying to screw the artist, and the future is apparently no different, since this article is (2025) somehow.

That said I am worried that this time is different. If AI and mechanization means the workers are no longer involved in the means of production, wealth is going to concentrate very quickly and stay that way.

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