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Comment by lokar | Hacker News Reader

I think he agrees it is popular, but in comparison to contemporary styles of music it’s tiny (in skilled performers, listeners, funding and revenue). Right? Even in Europe.

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Europe is actually worse, or at least Germany, because the government pays for opera, so it doesn't have to stand on its own two feet. So they don't (have to) care about listeners as much.

There is a certain amount of government support for classical music in the US as well. Not enough to fully fund it.

> so it doesn't have to stand on its own two feet. So they don't (have to) care about listeners as much.

That's great. A lot is lost when art has to cater to audiences.

Except it runs into an excess problem. As an example, Berlin - just one city - has 7 professional orchestras. They are supported by the government financially to the tune of 200 million EUR per year. There is a very real opportunity cost here and quite a bit of a wealth transfer to old people at the same time (since the audiences for classical music tend to be on the older side).

You could pump a large part of those resources into supporting other kinds of music and arguably the outcome would be more interesting.

It's a wealth transfer to the middle class. Poor people by and large don't go to the orchestra or opera.

Of course, some poor people do enjoy these kinds of things! But if you gave them a choice between the subsidised ticket or the embedded subsidy as cash in hand, I'm sure most poor people would take the cash.

> You could pump a large part of those resources into supporting other kinds of music and arguably the outcome would be more interesting.

Or give the money to poor people, or leave the money with tax payers, etc.

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