Hey guys, I wrote this thing, and ready to discuss it here on HN. Come at me with your best shot!
If you are demanding I take a shot then I have a nitpick: First paragraph has the Traditionalists, Incrementalists, Apologists, and Defeatists. What about the school of thought that the widespread ability to freely share music is inevitable and artists, as they always have, will find a way to make money because people love music? What school of thought are you and I in?
Do you think this model will turn the music industry into even more of a hits based business (like the app store model has done to software) or less of one?
I can see books moving to this model as well, but movies seem a bit more problematic unless budgets fall drastically.
I think music will always have hits and superstars, whether the gatekeeper is radio or internet. What we call "viral" today will be upgraded to how we think of "hit" today.
Overall though, I'm more excited about the "middle class" of musicians the new era of music industry can support. I personally think maintaining a profitable and real relationship with your fans will require a lot less overhead in the future. And, they can go direct to fan, which is beneficial for independent artists, imo.
I am excited about the possibility of a potentially larger middle class of musicians as well but I can also see pressure from the need for virality that works against a healthy middle class.
"You need to make the kickstarter music top ten page or else you make nothing!" is something I can see happening. At the same time, it's unlikely to be worse than the selling CD's model for those people so maybe that's just complaining about it only being "better" instead of "perfect", which is silly.
The fundamental point he gets at is that you want to 'Connect with Fans' more than anything. This is why people like Amanda Palmer, Trent Reznor and the Juggalos (oh my) have been so successful. People connect with their music and their persona.
The second part is to give those fans a 'Reason to Buy'. In your article you talked about things like close up access, neat events, and being added to the liner notes: these are all concrete reasons to buy.
That formula is sort of what you were hinting at.
Use the infinite goods (the smell of the food in your metaphor) to sell the finite goods.
(I might do a follow up to that article with some further thoughts. Basically, I think the reason the crowd patronage model is the future is because it allows the artist to cover their fixed, up-front costs. Since the Internet has made distribution costs effectively 0, covering your fixed costs is the way to go)