I've seen this mentioned here before, but not really that clearly, so let me try: This is not an unsustainable model. Musicans nowadays get their money through

I've seen this mentioned here before, but not really that clearly, so let me try: This is not an unsustainable model. Musicans nowadays get their money through fans, not casual listeners. Music is released for free (Soundcloud) or semi-free (Youtube, Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, whatever) and the real money is moved through concerts and sometimes merch. This isn't always enough to pay everything, indeed many of the musicans I listen to have day jobs to pay the rent and the revenue through music is a bonus at best. Has it been different for unsigned artists at any point in time? After all you basically had no distribution channel before the internet, now you have one that doesn't make much money, but also doesn't cost anything. That sounds like a mild win for getting an audience to me. People do it because they like making music, not because they want to make money. One of my favorite artists, Professor Kliq, offers his music for free and under a Creative Commons license. He makes money through his day job as a web developer, licensing it on music portals and selling music on Bandcamp. I personally like that model a lot (along with the music itself), which makes me much more likely to send over some money for an album on Bandcamp.