The Death of the Middle-Class Musician

How many financially self-sustaining musicians should there be? Streaming has caused the number to fall, but recorded music before that likely made it fall as well.

Should we stop thinking about music as a job and start thinking about it as a hobbyist art form? Nobody is out there lamenting that you can’t make a living off of landscape painting. It’s a fun form of self expression that people will do regardless of the economics, so maybe the problem was ever thinking you could make a profession out of it?

A lot.

Many musicians teach others. Without them how will we learn one of the most beautiful / coolest things to ever exist?

I’ve tried learning from an app and it’s not the same as spending an hour with my guitar teacher. It’s not even close. I wish he were paid more given how talented he is and how hard he works.

> I wish he were paid more given how talented he is and how hard he works.

He's your guitar teacher. It would be difficult for you to state a wish that was more completely under your own control.