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^ this. Eighty percent of actors work as waiters & waitresses. Eighty percent of startups make $0. Why is this article topping hn?

• kennywinker 6y ago
  Actors are paid very well, on union scales, when they do get gigs. I suspect well over 80% of actors who get at least one gig per year are going to make at LEAST 10 x $200. Startups are a different situation, but in fact so different it seems silly to compare. But the real reason this is on HN is because this is the consequences of applying technology (smartphones, cellular data, cloud scale web services) to an industry (music sales).
  • vladmk 6y ago
    I don’t think it’s silly at all giving both a hand. Both are risky, both Take skill and luck, both rarely work out. I don’t agree
  • saaaaaam 6y ago
    Are startups such a different situation? You have a few people with a new creative vision and their success is largely determined by how well they can communicate that vision and how many customers they can acquire before their runway expires. Music is a subscription business, and the clever people have an eye to CAC, ARPU, MAU and LTV just as much as startups.
  • pgayed 6y ago
    There are probably more people supporting themselves from creative endeavors than ever before. (Proportionally and absolutely.) Think about all the tiktok'ers, OnlyFans, youtubers, instagram influencers, etc., who might have been otherwise dismissed as “the pretty face in the office”. This is not to say any significant proportion will end up “rich”—no different than the rest of us—but there have never been more “exit ramps”.