Article from Ultimate Classic Rock, which rather ironically, I've just stolen:
 
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The difficulties that younger musicians are facing in trying to make a living these days have not gone unnoticed by the generations that came before them. In a new interview, Roger Waters lashed out at the people who have created the technology that has resulted in putting less money in the hands of artists.
 
Speaking to the Times, the former Pink Floyd bassist calls himself “enormously privileged to have been born in 1943 and not 1983, to have been around when there was a music business and the takeover of Silicon Valley hadn’t happened and, in consequence, you could still make a living writing and recording songs and playing them to people.”
 
And while Waters admits that the diminishing sales of records “doesn’t change my life in any way,” he is still “angry” at “this gallery of rogues and thieves [who interject] themselves between the people who aspire to be creative and their potential audience and steal every f—ing cent anybody ever made and put it in their pockets to buy f—ing huge mega-yachts and Gulfstream Fives with. These…thieves! It’s just stealing! And that they’re allowed to get away with it is just incredible.”
 
However, Waters also does save some of his ire for the audience, who have taken full advantage of the technology. “I blame the punters as well to some extent,” he continues, “a whole generation that’s grown up who believe that music should be free. I mean why not make everything free? Then you could walk into a shop and say ‘I like that television’ and you walk out with it. No! Somebody made that and you have to buy it! ‘Oh, I’ll just pick up few apples.’ No! Some farmer grew those and brought them here to be sold!”
 
Waters’ words echo those spoken by Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons of Kiss to Billboard last week. “I think we’re very fortunate to have come out when we did, and to not be relying upon an industry that has basically committed suicide,” Stanley said.
 
“It’s really sad for the new artists. Where’s the next Elvis [Presley], where’s the next Beatles, where’s the [Led] Zeppelin? They’re out there but they don’t have a chance […] What are they gonna do? Give away their music for free? They’re gonna be living in their mom’s basement, unfortunately, and they’re never gonna get the chance that we did which is the saddest part of all for the new bands because there should always be a new generation of bands.”
 

Nothing new in any of that really. I remember the same things being said when kids used cassette recorders with a little microphone to tape the songs they liked in the top 40 and record companies were the bad guys who kept all the money and had all the artists screwed down with punitive contracts. I guess the last album didn't do so well ?
 

The really sad part will be when people start losing interest in seeing live bands that have "real musicians", who can actually play their own music well.

Hi,
 
I'm not sure that Roger is right ... or wrong on the same sentence.
 
He is also making "more" from a system that does overplays his and PF's music, to the point of exclusion for new artists, because everyone's mind is only centered on the "hits" they know, and having these folks listen to something different is difficult, as the attention span is not wide enough to help the person see differences, be they cultural or simply musical.
 
This is a concern I have, elsewhere, where their "top ten" has a tendency to prevent the appreciation and listening to something from Argentina or Brazil, or South Africa. Your ear (and MINE!!!) are so conditioned to hear only one thing, that it is often very hard to appreciate something else ... so a post asking where is the next Zeppelin or this or that, is not going to go anywhere, because many folks will say that it is junk, because their "favorite" guitarist, prevents you from listening to something different ... and you always can tell that suggestions have been heard, when the person who got the suggestion does not have the time, ability, or desire to hear anything else because they are trying to find their own inner self. But this is a "conditioning" and social problem with the the industry and the arts ... as time goes by, the internet will be more and more controlled by the same commercial and insdustries that we deplore ... and the moneys will continue going where it shouldn't ... but heck, this is the history of the world ... the populace works for something else, be it a religion or a dictator ... or a top ten ... for me it is the same thing! You are flooded with anything that says this is the way ... and no one questions it!
 
I always look at "new" or "other musics" as a new friend! Regardless.

I've tried to give my music away.
 
 
No one wants it.
 
 
That's sad.
(or is it?)

Not too surprising.  Heck, the Who was even profitably until after Tommy came out (but you can bet the record companies were making a lot off them!).
 
News Flash: It's not just artists that are having trouble making enough to live on, but people in most industries right now.  There's now a huge gap between the very rich and the rest with practically no "middle class" left.

My middle has no class that's for sure.

I got a pay increase last week. I think I'm much closer to middle class.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
In Honduras.

I have no class.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
School's out for summer?

bapu
I've tried to give my music away.
 
 
No one wants it.
 
 
That's sad.
(or is it?)

Unless there's a torrent for it, it's not worth it.