I played music from a young age, studied Jazz and honestly, the hope of making a decent career out of music died about 50 years ago with the advent of recording

I played music from a young age, studied Jazz and honestly, the hope of making a decent career out of music died about 50 years ago with the advent of recordings and high quality audio equipment, once live musicians were no longer required to have music in commercial settings, it was over because the average punter, who knows really nothing about art, couldn't give a shit what they're listening too. The side effect here is that with this change, the incentive for brilliant musicians to exist died too, and so we're left with the seriously diminished music we listen too today. When is the last time you heard a Stan Getz equivalent? Maybe there is still some more raping to be done by "the industry", but the whole scene has been raped and pillaged quite devastatingly already. There honestly seems to be a strong and enduring resurgence in live music popularity, which IMO is exciting, and I think will continue as the quality of commercial music just seems to go down the toilet year on year. The other issue generative AI will have is the same problem most musicians have, people like familiarity, you can making incredible music and 99% of ears will have no interest in it because it's unrelated to anything they, or they're fiends have listened too while going on that summer road trip in college. Why do people still listen to Vanilla Ice? Music is a wonderful, creative, artistic pursuit, just don't expect to make too much money out of it, and you'll be in line with reality. I play guitar for my son when he can't sleep, and it's the most rewarding thing I've ever done musically.