What’s up my soshis (socialists)? It’s Erique again, here to give you the rundown on how we do things in 3022. Under our great socialist system, musicians are all paid equally, no matter the quality of their craft. While that may sound a bit wackdack (unwise), let me lay out some of the benefits this creates. For one, the leveling of wages encourages people to pursue what they like and not just what makes the most money. This has led to a steep rise in song quality but also a fall in quantity produced. With no monetary incentive, there will inherently be those demoslacks (democrat + slacker) who try to coast off doing the bare minimum, but we enforce a quota of six songs a year. Other than that, musicians are given complete creative freedom over their work and a livable wage. This is much different from what I’ve read about past systems, particularly capitalist ones.
Apparently, 100 years ago the largest streaming platform at the time paid “about two-thirds of its revenue to rights holders”, who oftentimes weren’t even the artists themselves (Sisario, 2021, p. 5)! The money was funneled to the record labels, leaving many artists just the crumbs left over. Thankfully, we’ve gotten rid of that archaic system in favor of one where the artist retains all the rights. This blatant sploitin (exploitation) would never fly today but it most definitely soared back then. Under capitalism, no one was safe, not even children. To extract the necessary metals for the electronics of the time, many ethics and morals were ignored in favor of cheap labor. This is completely unheard of nowadays, where such metals can now be industrially synthesized. This introduction of synthetic replacements shifted the need from mining to production, putting more workers into factories. In these factories, the wages of each worker are the same but also more than enough to live, and great measures are taken to ensure a safe and healthy work environment. With all of this in mind, music enthusiasts can enjoy a guilt-free listening experience.