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Indie: No one pays you.

Popular: Gigs pay you.

Taylor Swift: Governments pay you millions of dollars for regional exclusivity. (essentially, play 2 - 3 concerts instead of 10+)

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/mar/05/taylor-swift-s...



The music industry is the most vicious example of inequality.

While some artists are so big that governments compete to have you come to their country (and NOT to your neighbours), the vast majority has trouble even getting to play free gigs.


Of course that's a quite rare case of a small nation with many neighbors with interested listeners, trying to get an artist to play there exclusively in order to drive concert tourism.




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