"Did anyone ever make much of a living on selling recordings?" Yes. I know plenty of independent artists before and after the Napster days and they could no l

"Did anyone ever make much of a living on selling recordings?" Yes. I know plenty of independent artists before and after the Napster days and they could no longer make a living. People just expected it for free, because Napster changed the culture of music..which is the long-term danger of piracy. It also made it so the only artists that could make a real living are forced to sign with a big label, because you now need an entire marketing department behind your music to compete with free. Music is now used as free marketing to get people to go to a show...and you need to be signed with a giant label to play at any decent venue. Small artists don't have access to any of this. "I think a big problem is the lack of market for the less intense public performance" These were always poorly paid gigs..and for good reason. There is no ROI for the restaurant/cafe, who are barely eking out a profit. "This isn't true. If you make updates paid enterprise customers are going to drag their feet and you'll be stuck supporting a large number of versions for a long time. It is much easier to lock corporations into continuous subscriptions." This IS true. Many software companies went to SaaS because it can't be shared for free and the cost of server space/hosting is now very cheap. I should know, I was involved in many meetings with business owners that did just this. So the unintended consequences of over a decade of software/music piracy is pushing all of the independent artists out of a living and we now need to pay a monthly fee for software instead of being able to purchase it outright.