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Comment by MaximumYComb | Hacker News Reader

Napster was a godsend. The music industry was a racket. In 1999 it would cost me around $32 for a single CD album here in Australia. That's close to $55 dollars today adjusted for inflation. When music/movies/games first moved to online distribution they had artificially inflated prices here. The cost of these would often be 40-80% than what Americans would pay. This was due to their distribution deals that companies had to artificially drive up prices here. When the Australian dollar rose against the US dollar they changed out prices to Australian dollars, since for the first time we were paying the same as the Americans. Overnight these things rose in price 50%.

I pay for my music. I have had a Spotify subscription for years. They're offering me a product at a reasonable price. You try to extort people and they'll move back to piracy.

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Ah yes, I remember when the problem with the music industry was big bad scary DRM.

But now DRM on everything is just cool, because the DRM allows tech companies for which the majority of HN works for instead of the big bad scary RIAA and MPAA to control the product and skim off most of the money while adding the least value.

DRM on music is deader than Elvis. I can buy music from Amazon, Apple, or on CD, vinyl or magtap from a record store. None of them employ DRM.

I think that’s GP’s point: lots of people justified pirating music because “DRM sucks and so does the RIAA for suing grandmothers,” and the people with the ability to push back (people in the tech industry, a much smaller group than now) did and DRM was quietly left behind for music purchases.

But now that the tech industry is larger, fewer people, as a percentage, care about DRM so it is on books, movies, games, and most else...except music.

Ah, Napster. Reminds me of this ancient Flash animation https://youtu.be/fS6udST6lbE

> Napster was a godsend. The music industry was a racket.

Completely true - and the reason why, is because it forced competition on the music industry. Competition that couldn't be bought out. Napster wasn't completely free - it came with the costs legality and a bit of tech know how, but it brought competition to the industry.

And overall it again exposed one of the key points. Free markets dont benefit consumers, competitive markets do. Consumers and society benefits when people are free and capable to successfully enter and exit markets as consumers as they see fit, and when entrepreneurs are free and capable of successfully entering markets as suppliers as they see fit. Locked distribution channels, exclusivity deals and the rest all prevent this. Without competitive markets, you end up with gross-rent seeking.

Competitive markets benefit consumers and society overall, Pure free markets incentivize seeking.

Heavy handed government intervention can eliminate competition in suppliers, however other suppliers are frequently the number one force in current markets eliminating competition in suppliers. And the end result for consumers (as we saw in the record industry) is just as bad.

If we're arguing against regulatory capture, and government limiting market efficiency, then we need to be arguing just as strongly against exclusivity deals, locked distribution channels and moats.

If a tower is teetering one way, giving it a shove so it's now teetering just as far another way is no better when we want it to stand balanced.

Trading govt enabled rent-seeking for industry enabled rent seeking is in no way a win for consumers or society.

And arguing the benefits of free markets while ignoring the fact they aren't competitive due to industry moat building tactic is hypocritical.

I wouldn't call it extortion. The music industry doesn't produce the same quality or number of quality songs it once did. There hasn't even been any substantially new genres in two decades. It's much, much harder to make it big as an independent artist these days. Besides the monetization problem, which is a big one, you also have a big discovery problem. There's a lot of things competing for people's time and attention and you have to compete with all the other songs in people's large streaming libraries to make a fraction of what you would have from CD sales two decades ago.

> you also have a big discovery problem

I find it far easier than ever before to discover new music. Which leads me to:

> It's much, much harder to make it big as an independent artist these days

My (possibly naive and certainly not backed by any insider knowledge) thinking is, that this is because you have far more than there used to be as the barrier of entry is far lower. I’ve bought music from all kinds of artists than I probably would never even have found even just 10 years ago.

My (certainly naive and not backed by any knowledge) opinion is that nowadays it's much easier to make it as a nobody. That's why it's happening so much, and they're all competing with each other. Now we have many very good musicians, but the studios won't manage to create another legendary musician anymore.

I'm afraid to ask, but what "substantially new" genre do you suppose came into existence two decades ago?

I would bet the exact opposite of your entire comment is true. Instead of a new genre every decade or two, we now have new genres multiple times per decade. It is much easier to make it big as an independent artist thanks to a multitude of large open entry platforms, and there is more money flowing into the music industry than ever.

There are more talented artists in all genres, and thanks to music production hardware/software becoming essentially free a lot of that talent is being adequately produced.

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