I'm with you 100%. A lot of people who wrote books didn't realize they were selling decorated paper, or who recorded music didn't realize they were selling wax

I'm with you 100%. A lot of people who wrote books didn't realize they were selling decorated paper, or who recorded music didn't realize they were selling wax discs and magnetic tape. With digital publishing, they were actually obsoleted. Like you, I don't think there's good news there, though. As an e.g. writer, you have to convert to selling ideas. The way you sell an idea is that you give it away, and if hearing it makes people like you they will give you arbitrary support. For a writer at least what that means is that only original, interesting work that stands out will be valuable, and it will not be valuable to the extent that it is good, but to the extent that it appeals to an audience. You might as well be a tap dancer. And if you aren't original, you'll never stand out amongst the AI slop, which will get better and better (and nicer and more pleasant to read and more useful and all that good shit that technology does.) I don't know if that's a bad thing. We have gone from an excess of uninteresting expression in the world to an overwhelming amount of "me too" and worthless repetition filling every crevice. I've probably published 3K words on the internet today. The number before the internet would be zero; but even back then the bookstores were filled with crap. The market for crap has been taken by AI. And as it gets better, as the crap sea level rises, it will eventually be over most content creators' heads. The only future for an expression market is parasocial. You're going to have to make people like you, and take care of you because they think of you as family. It's no wonder that entertainment is merging into politics.