Comment by paulluuk

I don't think that's true at all. There might be (and probably are) tens of thousands of artists creating masterful artwork at home.

But you're talking about PAID artwork, and yes: when it comes to paid art, money does matter.

You can't expect artists to completely ignore financial incentives, and at the same time expect the creative industry to just throw lots of money at these artists. That's just not how (capitalist) businesses work.

The world absolutely does care for super high quality artwork. But very few people are willing to pay $2000 for a movie ticket when they could also go to 100 $20 movies.

On top of that: who gets to decide what is high quality, anyway? The creative world is fraught with corruption, elitism and "who knows who", making it very unlikely that a highly talented artist is ever even "discovered".

It's a lot more complicated then just "money is all that matters".

And finally: I don't think this "trend" is just in the western world. Show me a place in the world where artists are rewarded based on purely the quality of their work, rather than the profitability of their work.