There are so many musicians out there that aren't quite good enough. I disagree with you. There are more good enough artists than ever. Pop music orchestrates

There are so many musicians out there that aren't quite good enough. I disagree with you. There are more good enough artists than ever. Pop music orchestrates the transition from childhood to adulthood. It helps structure sexuality, make it more predictable. In order to fulfil this function, the musical quality is not too important, as long as a certain standard is met. And modern production technology can help just about everybody to achieve these minimal standards. What is much more important is achieving a critical mass of fans, which is to a substantial degree a question of marketing, and hence access to capital. Even though modern production outfits like Max Martin's are highly skilled, most of their artists fail. But the 1 in 10 who make it big recoup the loss by the 9 others. The music industry's main business model is thus this: find 10 young (hence cheap) musicians, try to make all of them a star, live on 1 of 10 unicorns. As you can see, that's the Y Combinator business model. The music industry got there first. I would not at all be surprised if Y Combinator were consciously following in the music industry's footsteps.