Comment by martin-t
14 hours ago
The other replies are good.
The general principle is inverting who has power. It should always be with people doing real positive-sum work, not those with money whose primary business of redistributing money and taking a cut.
If they are allowed to ask for something, they will and because they have more power, they are able to pressure people into unfavorable deals. They don't need your band, there's plenty of others who will take the deal. But you need their money or someone else's but that somebody else will offer similar terms, unless those exploitative terms are illegal because people united against parasitism.
> It should always be with people doing real positive-sum work, not those with money
I don't like the conclusion, but I've convinced myself that curating and selecting what is worth doing is actually the real work. Picking where the bridge is to go is more important than building it. So allocating money is the important work. It feels icky to me... but also inescapable.
How would people with money and no artistic talent know? If we're not talking about art but some other kind of productive work - again - money does not qualify them. It gives them the power to decide, it probably lets them cultivate a skill for knowing which investments are gonna make money and which are gonna lose it. But it does not qualify them to decide what is beneficial for others.
As for the analogy - who picks where it gets built? It better be an engineer. And just look at the mounf of work done by the engineer, the builders and some suit who rubber stamps it. Work and skill is what should be rewarded, not having money.