Culture has shifted and now piracy is not looked at as a real crime, but a passage of rite. These streaming services came around as an alternative to piracy and not paying anything for content anywhere.
We're witness the bankrupting of artists over time. And it amazes me that on a forum of content creators, you can see the self-interested individuals rationalizing it as fair. We can argue about the business models all day long, but it should be in tandem with the fact that life isn't fair, and what's happening to these artists isn't fair. The way people are talking about it, it doesn't really come off that way.
Sometimes I wonder if SOPA would have gone through and achieved the purposes it was set out to do - yes, let's be ideological for a moment and talk about the purpose vs the potential abuse. A lot of websites that harbor piracy are no now no longer available, and it's way more difficult to pirate your favorite music. What would that world be like, for consumers and artists?
Maybe more artists would pull their music from the streaming services, which were formed to fight piracy. Now all of a sudden that 9.95 per month you pay for music isn't so great, because not everyone is on there. The streaming services were built as an alternative to a crime - piracy.
To me the end result would be simple: The average user would have to pay more for their content, and that money would flow more into artists pockets, and those who work in artistic industries, which would reinforce more and better artistic creation.
I am probably one of the few: I pay for all of my content, and not on streaming services. I don't buy singles, I buy the whole album. When a friend opens a business, I don't immediately ask for a deal. I go in, and pay full price, and try to support that friend as best as I can. I may be old school - I pay for things, I am happy to pay for things. I want to financially support people who create things, because I want more people to have a means to be able to go out, create, and be rewarded for their work.