There are other consequences as well.
-the majority of people who stream listen to playlists, and playlists are mostly singles. Album tracks don't get streamed nearly as much, so writers don't get paid for album tracks - they did when people bought...the whole album.
-smaller, niche, indepent artists had it figured out. License your recordings to indepent labels. You remain owner of your masters, they handle legalities, distribution and promotion, and you could usually get finished product from them at very friendly prices, so you could earn some money selling CD's on the road.
You can wax nostalgic about vinyl all you want, but CD's were a beautiful product that way : much easier to stash in the band van than LP's. Have your ASCAP/BMI stuff figured out, and if you manage to sell even modest numbers (by industry standards) and there's some sweet mailbox money X amount of time later. The band I was in for close to 20 years, niche and obscure as it may be, managed to make some money on CD's this way for years.
-Record labels have become strange, almost absurd entities now that hardly - or don't - sell physical product.
But artists still need them to a large extent, because they can open doors for you - promotional, and in the streaming world too.
It's a public secret that Spotify was built on capital from the three remaining majors (Sony, Universal and Warner) Guess who's music gets preferential treatment and conditions on Spotify?
-Labels, major ánd independent are also a little desperate. One of their prime sources of income -physical copies - hardly exists any more. In the Streaming era, for more artists than not, advances have become a thing of the past. Au contraire - instead of "just" a large cut of your publishing income and physical copies sold, the average contract now wants. ...a cut of your concert ánd merchandise (yes, T-shirts, stickers, hats, etc..) income - the two main income streams (no pun intended) artists have left.
-usually, when I talk about this, there's always at least someone replying "but..! Band Camp!" "But...there's the internet and social media now, artists can do it all theirselves!" "But....I read vinyl sales are up!". Sure.
Band camp is cool, but it doesn't make up for the fact THERE ARE NO RECORD STORES ANY MORE.
Sure, social media kinda sorta works...and not. It eats up a LOT of time artists don't get to spend on writing, rehearsing, recording, etc.
Also, trying to promote something on soicial media will have you tearing your hair out in no time. Post too little and people don't get to see your posts. Post too much and the algorithm will make...people not see your posts. You're fighting an algorithm that was designed to ultimately have you pay for sponsored posts, ads.
Oh yeah..vinyl sales are up, right? Well, that doesn't make up for the fact that CD sales are as good as dead, and a vinyl record these days is insanely expensive to produce compared to CD's. (And ship, stash, and transport on the road.)
Rant mode off. I'm still mostly happy I still get to play music at almost 54, I have some sweet gigs coming up and people show up to them. And the "music industry" might be doing great, just don't ruin my mood and tell me musicians are too.
