Comment by kbart

"Art will not vanish, but it will change the arts, probably in a major way. But what it will be like is up for discussion."

I believe that current situation favors indie artists as anybody can form a band, record an album in their basement, upload it to Basecamp, Youtube etc. and if they are really good, expect a success. That's how an open system should work imho. In an old system, you would have to pass that middleman (and agree to pay huge part of money made from your music) before somebody even hears you. The difference is that it is hard/impossible to strike super-rich now as a musician, "success" often means taking donations for song/albums downloads and getting paid for live concerts to make a living. That makes musicians much like any other profession, and that's how it should be; we had super-rich musicians only because there were bubble in music industry in the past century (other comments have written more detailed on this topic). If all pop-stars would disappears overnight, I wouldn't mind either as there's probably enough indie music to discover than I have enough time in my whole life.