It's so hard to know what's coming out and what's good unless you're an audiophile and actively seeking it out, for casual listeners it's just easier to retreat to the hits of decades past. This, combined with the fact that we're all getting our music from algorithms that favor the hits for their own reasons, means that there is no "mainstream" music culture anymore (and I would argue that there hasn't been one since the early 2000s).
Is this a bad thing, necessarily? Eh, I don't think it is. More people are able to make a living making music today compared to decades past when all the money was monopolized by a few dozen high-profile acts, so I'd call that an improvement. The modern music scene comes with its own bugbears to be sure, like the domination of music platforms, but overall it's a bit better than when it was dominated by record company execs.
I agree that its never been better to strike out on yr own as an indie artist, but "all the money was monopolized by a few dozen high-profile acts" is stil true in the streaming era. See: https://www.leeds.ac.uk/news-arts-culture/news/article/4926/music-streaming-dominated-by-top-artists, quote: "Just 1% of artists account for up to 80% of streamed tracks, according to new research."
Bootleg uploads get copyright striked, so the money goes to the rights-holders either way. This is how YT has avoided a major lawsuit until now, but the major labels are still pissed off with them because if they earned as much money per-user as they do from Spotify premium, they would be raking in billions. As a result, labels have been forcing YT to take down certain artists catalogues and piddle with its copyright bots to make them as unfair as possible. YT made YT Music as a way of placating the labels, but it might still not be enough in the long run. If it's not, YT would have to buy a license for every single song on the platform... Which they're not going to do, because it would probably bankrupt Google. The only logical step in that scenario would be to remove music from YT altogether.
It's so hard to know what's coming out and what's good unless you're an audiophile and actively seeking it out, for casual listeners it's just easier to retreat to the hits of decades past. This, combined with the fact that we're all getting our music from algorithms that favor the hits for their own reasons, means that there is no "mainstream" music culture anymore (and I would argue that there hasn't been one since the early 2000s).
Is this a bad thing, necessarily? Eh, I don't think it is. More people are able to make a living making music today compared to decades past when all the money was monopolized by a few dozen high-profile acts, so I'd call that an improvement. The modern music scene comes with its own bugbears to be sure, like the domination of music platforms, but overall it's a bit better than when it was dominated by record company execs.
I agree that its never been better to strike out on yr own as an indie artist, but "all the money was monopolized by a few dozen high-profile acts" is stil true in the streaming era. See: https://www.leeds.ac.uk/news-arts-culture/news/article/4926/music-streaming-dominated-by-top-artists, quote: "Just 1% of artists account for up to 80% of streamed tracks, according to new research."
Youtube Music will actively search for a bootleg video to avoid paying the artist even if you are a subscriber.
That is how scummy things are.
.... I believe the artist still gets paid for a bootleg video
Bootleg uploads get copyright striked, so the money goes to the rights-holders either way. This is how YT has avoided a major lawsuit until now, but the major labels are still pissed off with them because if they earned as much money per-user as they do from Spotify premium, they would be raking in billions. As a result, labels have been forcing YT to take down certain artists catalogues and piddle with its copyright bots to make them as unfair as possible. YT made YT Music as a way of placating the labels, but it might still not be enough in the long run. If it's not, YT would have to buy a license for every single song on the platform... Which they're not going to do, because it would probably bankrupt Google. The only logical step in that scenario would be to remove music from YT altogether.