I grew up thinking record companies were a confederacy of scumbags, and my attitude hasn't changed that much, but the question of what the fair price for a reco

I grew up thinking record companies were a confederacy of scumbags, and my attitude hasn't changed that much, but the question of what the fair price for a recorded song should be has been clouded by a mix of cynicism on the part of publishers, and magical thinking on the part of artists. Tech VC is an analogy for the risk model of record companies, where you have money from investors that needs a productive asset, and your risk/return appetite is being willing to accept that most of your bets will return zero, with just 2% of your investments yielding huge (10x+) multiples and 80% of your returns. Whether you are investing in bands making albums or entrepreneurs building startups, there seem to be direct similes for record sales, publishing rights, merch, side projects, and intellectual property. The point is artists make their money touring with shows, which is basically a job, where the record company/investor makes their big money because they get the benefit of having risked capital with leverage. A founder working for investors is analogous to a band touring in support of album sales. Your upside is probably a job with a lifestyle and a bonus. Which comes to the question of what a good price for a recording could be. Musicians generally don't take very much risk or use leverage that would yield investor-size returns. 99.9% of music is crap. The distribution curve of quality is really steep and long tailed, so if you invest in a given band, you are taking a <1% chance of ever seeing your money again. That's why record companies and VC make money. They're the producers. They're creating a portfolio spread over a wide pool of risk. If you write some songs, arguably, you have ventured nothing of value until someone discovers it. The music platforms provide this discovery. Sure, I wish I could earn the an equivalent living making music or writing as I do in tech, but since I'm not a superstar talent, I manage that expectation and accept comfortable mediocrity. As the amortized capital risked by a musician averaged across all the other musicians in their genre on a given song, the price of a stream above tiny fractions of a penny is generous. The missing feature seems to be a way to sell the licensing and publishing rights, where I can pay $100 to use it in a video. I get the sense that organizing spotify artists to complain is yet another way to hustle and exploit them, but this time for political ends instead of financial ones. edit: there is probably a producer/product-manager analogy to be made as well, but will leave it there.