> Today's professional musicians have to tour constantly to be profitable enough to survive, not to mention constantly churning out new tracks to remain relevant.
I think this is just the nature of the beast, so to speak. Due to the large number of musicians, the very, very low cost of recording a track, and the global, nearly free distribution channel of the Internet, the value of a pre-recorded piece of music is practically $0.
However, going to a show, seeing a real performance, feeling the music, etc etc, is still worth $10 a ticket to me, even for music that isn't particularly good. You can't copy/paste that experience on to someone else's iPod.
Your comment summarizes where we are today, but maybe there's other solutions in the future?
Right now we have basically the two mentioned modes of contact with the artist: listening to their released music and seeing them perform live. Already big concerts have been adding revenue streams with things like VIP tickets or a chance to meet the artist, but what about more streams in the online ___domain? David Lynch is a bit of a pioneer in this space, from what I gather his website has a paid-subscription model where you get access to a ton of his work from finished pieces to random things he does through the day. If some of my favorite artists had networks like this I would consider subscribing.
If you really want to change the game, first change the vocabulary and context and the game will change itself.
You mean:
>> the cost of a pre-recorded piece of music is practically $0.
The value remains the same; The sum of the marginal benefit of hearing the music each time, which is likely greater than the $0.99 that people pay for a song on iTunes (otherwise they wouldn't pay it). If you aren't willing to pay for the song but is willing to copy it from someone's iPod if given the option then the value of the song is the opportunity cost of doing the actual copying.
I think this is just the nature of the beast, so to speak. Due to the large number of musicians, the very, very low cost of recording a track, and the global, nearly free distribution channel of the Internet, the value of a pre-recorded piece of music is practically $0.
However, going to a show, seeing a real performance, feeling the music, etc etc, is still worth $10 a ticket to me, even for music that isn't particularly good. You can't copy/paste that experience on to someone else's iPod.