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> You can’t make a living making music. Or art. You can’t even make a living taking care of children. First, this isn't true. Plenty of people make a living do

> You can’t make a living making music. Or art. You can’t even make a living taking care of children. First, this isn't true. Plenty of people make a living doing each of the above. (Art is somewhat of a special case, because some will say that what you're doing isn't art by definition if it's attached to some functional purpose like a business model. But you don't have to listen to those people.) Second, these things aren't cheap because they're not valuable. Water is cheap. Water is also necessary to life. It's immensely valuable. What makes it cheap is that it's easy to provide, so competition drives prices down. People aren't going to pay a lot of money to get something valuable if they can pay less to get the same value elsewhere. Value isn't the only thing that matters when determining price. > There are dozens (hundreds?) of successful open source projects that have tried to become even just modest commercial enterprises, some very seriously. Results aren’t great. Are results much better for normal people trying to start businesses that aren't based on open-source code? I'm not convinced they are. Businesses are hard.

SkyPuncher 8y ago
I think a more apt description would be "You can't PLAN to make a living making music". Certainly, lots of people successfully make a living with music, arts, sports, etc. However, there's a lot out of the individual's control in those fields.
- csallen 8y ago
  I disagree there, too. Attempting to make money makes you a business. As a business, your fate is in your hands. You're the one making the decisions. If you decide that the path you want to take in the business of music is to give control to record labels because all the business-y marketing production stuff isn't fun for you, that's your decision. You don't have to do it that way.
- ken 8y ago
  You can't plan to be the next Beatles (just as you can't plan to be the next Microsoft), but you can absolutely plan to make a living in the arts (just as you can plan to make a living in software). When people look at a field from the outside, they only see the celebrities, but this is a completely unrepresentative sample. As Phil Greenspun once put it, "I can't decide if I want to be a scientist like James Watson, a musician like Britney Spears, or an actor like Harrison Ford."
  - JakeTheAndroid 8y ago
    You can make money in music, but it's very difficult to make money making music, which I think is essentially the same analogy here. A band I love called Periphery is fairly popular, they do global tours etc. They have been very vocal that the band itself generates no revenue. They are happy to break even because they love making music. Instead they use their influence to extend their brand, such as pedals, pickups, clothing brands, etc. They absolutely make money in music, but they don't make money making the music. You can make money in Open Source, but you're unlikely to make money developing of Open Source. But, if you do contribute or maintain OSS, then you can likely get a job at any of the million companies that need a dev. So you're still making money and you're still in OSS, but they are separate. I think that was the point OP was making here. Someone makes money on art, but the actual creation of that art isn't likely being paid out to the creator, just all the components that bring it to the consumer.
pbalau 8y ago
There are 0 people that make a living making art (and music, as a subset of art). All the people you think of are selling art. They are doing things that they believe they can sell, either for money or for status.
- minitech 8y ago
  That distinction seems like a bit of a nitpick.
  - scroot 8y ago
    A nitpick? On Hackernews?
  - chobeat 8y ago
    Say it to all my friends that make art and don't want to sell it. Their hunger is very real.
    - TotempaaltJ 8y ago
      Sure, but they've essentially decided to not make money and solve their hunger. "Some people decide not to make money with their art" is a very different statement than "you cannot make money with your art"
- hinkley 8y ago
  Nitpicking aside, if you consider that most of the money is made by people working with musicians and not the musicians themselves, then 'the money is in selling art' is pretty true. I wonder which is more lucrative? Starting a band, or putting equal resources and time into buying lottery tickets. I bet the gap is narrower than people would be comfortable with.
  - csallen 8y ago
    That's no different than most professions. Consider software development. Who makes more money, the CEO, the top sales people, or the developers? It's probably top to bottom in that order.

SkyPuncher 8y ago

I think a more apt description would be "You can't PLAN to make a living making music". Certainly, lots of people successfully make a living with music, arts, sports, etc. However, there's a lot out of the individual's control in those fields.

csallen 8y ago
I disagree there, too. Attempting to make money makes you a business. As a business, your fate is in your hands. You're the one making the decisions. If you decide that the path you want to take in the business of music is to give control to record labels because all the business-y marketing production stuff isn't fun for you, that's your decision. You don't have to do it that way.
ken 8y ago
You can't plan to be the next Beatles (just as you can't plan to be the next Microsoft), but you can absolutely plan to make a living in the arts (just as you can plan to make a living in software). When people look at a field from the outside, they only see the celebrities, but this is a completely unrepresentative sample. As Phil Greenspun once put it, "I can't decide if I want to be a scientist like James Watson, a musician like Britney Spears, or an actor like Harrison Ford."
- JakeTheAndroid 8y ago
  You can make money in music, but it's very difficult to make money making music, which I think is essentially the same analogy here. A band I love called Periphery is fairly popular, they do global tours etc. They have been very vocal that the band itself generates no revenue. They are happy to break even because they love making music. Instead they use their influence to extend their brand, such as pedals, pickups, clothing brands, etc. They absolutely make money in music, but they don't make money making the music. You can make money in Open Source, but you're unlikely to make money developing of Open Source. But, if you do contribute or maintain OSS, then you can likely get a job at any of the million companies that need a dev. So you're still making money and you're still in OSS, but they are separate. I think that was the point OP was making here. Someone makes money on art, but the actual creation of that art isn't likely being paid out to the creator, just all the components that bring it to the consumer.

pbalau 8y ago

There are 0 people that make a living making art (and music, as a subset of art). All the people you think of are selling art. They are doing things that they believe they can sell, either for money or for status.

minitech 8y ago
That distinction seems like a bit of a nitpick.
- scroot 8y ago
  A nitpick? On Hackernews?
- chobeat 8y ago
  Say it to all my friends that make art and don't want to sell it. Their hunger is very real.
  - TotempaaltJ 8y ago
    Sure, but they've essentially decided to not make money and solve their hunger. "Some people decide not to make money with their art" is a very different statement than "you cannot make money with your art"
hinkley 8y ago
Nitpicking aside, if you consider that most of the money is made by people working with musicians and not the musicians themselves, then 'the money is in selling art' is pretty true. I wonder which is more lucrative? Starting a band, or putting equal resources and time into buying lottery tickets. I bet the gap is narrower than people would be comfortable with.
- csallen 8y ago
  That's no different than most professions. Consider software development. Who makes more money, the CEO, the top sales people, or the developers? It's probably top to bottom in that order.