alt Hacker NewsI'm confused, surely there's a contradiction between "piracy was so good, we had this panacea of completely open, free, infinite music" and "streaming is bad even though it's the same infinite music library but we charge a small subscription". I get that artists aren't paid enough, but it's better than the $0 they get from piracy.
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> it's the same infinite music library
No it's not. That is absurdly wrong. You can ignore whoever led you to believe it.
> I get that artists aren't paid enough, but it's better than the $0 they get from piracy.
I was going to say that you should talk to some artists, but one has already replied to you.
This should clear your confusion enough to update your opinion.
Piracy encouraged buying music. You'd learn of this cool band through a friend and would buy their next album when it came out. People still had the same budget for music but weren't so much at the whim of what music executives wanted to push at the moment. The network effects more than made up for the "lost" revenue.
> I get that artists aren't paid enough, but it's better than the $0 they get from piracy.
No it's not. We'd _much_ rather you steal our music if it means we are part of a free, permissionless, seeking-to-be-comprehensive library of the traditions of humankind.
We don't give a fuck about whether you get our music according to the prescribed notions of some particular state or corporation.
I'm a bluegrasser, so maybe my lens is pretty shifted (given that our tradition is one of passing on copyright-unencumbered tunes from time immemorial). But this view is very widespead - essentially universal - in bluegrass. There's a reason that every IBMA and bluegrass grammy has gone to a drm-free record the past bunch of years.
https://pickipedia.xyz/wiki/DRM-free