The first thing to do is to ditch the term ‘charge’. As far as recorded music goes you are no longer in a position to charge anyone anything. ‘Charge’ relies on being able to sue people if they make their own copies, i.e. via copyright.

All you can do today and tomorrow is SELL. That means proposing a good bargain, an exchange of a music recording at a price that both the artist and their fans find agreeable.

So, you can sell recordings, but you can’t sell copies or listens (the market for them is running on the inertia of tradition). So, you can’t sell streaming services either. You can sell selection/recommendation services on top of streaming, but that’s value added, you’re not selling the streaming.

What people will pay for is to be provided with what they like, i.e. good recommendations, and new music from their favourite artists. A copy is worthless because a computer can make it in a millisecond for 0$. A listen is actually a burden upon the listener – it’s an audition and appraisal.

So, what you’re left with is introduction/selection/recommendation services (new artists) and new music (aka live and recorded performances). Once music has been paid for, that’s it. Finito. No more money. It’s been released, published, sold – or given away as promotion.

If you revert to the pre-copyright meaning of ’subscription’, then your first sentence is correct. Artists must invite their fans to subscribe to a commission of their production of music recordings. Just as they invite them to purchase a ticket to a live performance.

QuidMusic is a prototype of such a site I made a few years ago.

Why again do people “steal” cable or satellite TV? Right, because the bundles are NOT what they want!

Why again do people purchase just the tracks they want on iTunes et al? Because the people who’s spent money, you know the source of the industry’s revenue, should be spent on what they want, not what they are told to spend it on!

To use analogies, as some here love to do, if you walk into a grocery store in need of milk, how would you feel if instead of paying $3.49 for a 2L of skim (0%) milk, you have to pay $22.17 for a 2L of 2% milk, bananas, bread, cereal, two cans of soup, a bag of apples, two broccoli crowns, and 8 baby bok choy?

That’s the problem, consumers want CHOICE and the choice should be based upon what they WANT not what those in the business of maximizing revenue want them to want.

Cable companies piss of consumers with their bundles. Albums have been, for the last two decades or more, declining in quality (on average) where you only have 1-3 good songs and the rest is filler.

This is the reason people support iTunes. The only thing iTunes does is give the consumer what they want, choice!

And clearly some people still want control and money over all else, even though they know that no matter what they do to control, the consumers will find a way to get what they want, even if that means taking it for free.

So, you want more money? Give consumers a choice based upon what they actually want, not what you want them to want.

If no one buys your art, maybe you’re not appealing to the right people and if you’ve tried every demographic, then try another line of work for income, do art for yourself.