Gene Simmons: Rock is dead, file sharing killed it

Music is an experience. In order to have an experience one must consume large amounts of music. No sane person is going to own 10,000 songs @ $.99 each ~ $10,000 sitting on their hard drive. That is just unrealistic. Concerts, swag/merch, etc are a better way to fund music, or via services like Spotify that remove ownership and change the monetization structure (why do I need to own a copy of a song? why not just charge me a very small amount every time I hear it - ad-supported music is a form of charging the consumer).

Not to mention there is a large argument and some evidence that file sharing did nothing at all to the industry since the people pirating files were not going to purchase the music anyways -- as-in their two options were pirate the music or don't have it at all. (I'm not condoning piracy, just pointing out that a large amount of piracy is not actually monetarily hurting the industry like is claimed because that money would not have entered the industry anyways). And in some cases, piracy has been proven to help the music industry -- such as Metallica (and many many other bands) becoming famous off of bootleg tapes. There is an argument to be made that they would not have come to critical mass if everyday joe did not have access to the music.

Services like Pandora and Spotify have introduced me personally to artists I would never have considered before - and now I support said bands when they come to town on tour or buy purchasing merch like t-shirts, etc.

When KISS comes to town... you bet I'm going to the show.