Why? Is your income limited by lack of discoverability or lack of people willing to put in money for it?
First you need the audience. Without big marketing budgets free sharing of music is the best you have. Even if people were willing to pay for good music, many would prefer to just browse the free alternatives because there are tons of good musicians willing to race to the bottom.
It's not like you are alone. There are tons and tons of struggling musicians out there, but you compete aganist each other. Not only that, bur you also compete against other forms of entertainment too. How can I, as a consumer, get to listen to your music if not for free on YouTube?
> Why? Is your income limited by lack of discoverability or lack of people willing to put in money for it?
I'm going to go with both. There has always been a host of undiscovered talent out there that never make it "big", ie: can sustain themselves and their families by doing music full time. (See Rodriguez and Searching for Sugar Man on how this goes), this goes back way before the Internet.
> Even if people were willing to pay for good music, many would prefer to just browse the free alternatives because there are tons of good musicians willing to race to the bottom.
This is exactly the problem. Were willing to pay for good music? This is the exact thing the parent is complaining about. Younger folk think it is for some reason not normal to pay someone else for their hard earned talent and work they put in to entertain you. There has always been a "race to the bottom". Some would say The Monkees were the poor man's Beatles, etc.
The parent is complaining that it is or should be somehow acceptable or normal that you get to listen to his product for free, even if it is against his wishes. Just because you can easily copy his entire music catalog in 3 minutes over the Internet doesn't change the fact that he should be able to charge you to listen to an album that took months to create.
> How can I, as a consumer, get to listen to your music if not for free on YouTube?
Contact the artist? Ask to buy their cd / 12" / mp3 / whatever from their online service?
First you need the audience. Without big marketing budgets free sharing of music is the best you have. Even if people were willing to pay for good music, many would prefer to just browse the free alternatives because there are tons of good musicians willing to race to the bottom.
It's not like you are alone. There are tons and tons of struggling musicians out there, but you compete aganist each other. Not only that, bur you also compete against other forms of entertainment too. How can I, as a consumer, get to listen to your music if not for free on YouTube?