Let's say that a musician goes $50k in debt making an album. They are now given a choice: would you rather be listened to by 50 million people and get no immedi

Let's say that a musician goes $50k in debt making an album. They are now given a choice: would you rather be listened to by 50 million people and get no immediate money, or by 10k people and be quickly made whole? Which do you suppose they'd choose? The fact is that celebrity, attention, and "coolness" are more than enough reward for most aspiring musicians. Anyone who gets famous by giving their art away has been more than fairly rewarded for their work. Evidence for this comes from the 10k+ ultra-capable undiscovered who would happily pay to take this artist's place. [Edit: I write this as someone who has earned good money through music, and thus I'm not sure what is being objected to, here. It is plainly true that fame brings instantaneous massive rewards and significant potential to earn more, later. It is also plainly true that even in the current "bad" economic environment for music, millions of people spend 10s of millions of hours each week writing, rehearsing, and performing. Clearly, the motivations are not primarily monetary.]