In every era of music, distribution made someone rich. But not the artist.

Vinyl made labels rich.

Cassettes made manufacturers rich.

CDs made retailers rich.

MP3s made Apple rich.

Streaming made platforms rich.

In each case, the format changed, but the outcome didn’t. The artist stayed broke.

The strange part is that this isn’t due to lack of demand. Music is everywhere. It’s always playing. Everyone wants it. But in making it ubiquitous, we made it worthless.

Artists today are told they have more tools than ever. That might be true. But tools don’t matter if you don’t own the means of distribution. And right now, they don’t. They’re renting shelf space in someone else’s store.