The Death of the Middle-Class Musician

Surely for most time, musicians have been working class. And precarious?

I'm not arguing in favour, I'm noting the deep historical social worth of a musician. It's classic veblen goods for a few, and serfdom for the rest.

Composers had ambiguous social standing. Virtuosi were superstars, but you didn't want your daughter to marry one.

What if the underlying relative value of music was returning to its organic roots? Maybe this is a version of the burger index and their labour value has been overweight for 50 or more years?

The cost in time and effort to become a musician is comparable to an apprenticeship or a surgeon. That cost isn't reflected in their value in the market.

surgery isn't an additive market though, we don't all have access to hundreds of thousands of surgeries for $10/mo

Surgeons also police membership, it's an old school guild. We could have many more sugeons, if the restrictive practices were changed. I don't think this answers your fundamental point btw, I think musician==surgeon is only analogous in the time to achieve mastery, the application of the skill diverges.

We did in some ways (cosmetic procedures) go to low cost rental models. They're terrible.