You're implying that this is the picture someone (companies? media? society?) has painted for "purely" digital artists. It is a silly position to look at this document and say, "See! ~40,000 and only ~$100 for their efforts! Haha!". If you think about how many people use Spotify, then remember how many listen to songs repeatedly, and then also remember how many listen to songs and then leave the room because someone rung the door bell, that's a shit ton of plays. So 40,000 plays doesn't take long to accumulate and if you only acquire this amount you're not good, niche genre, etc.
We don't hold this same criticism to pure e-commerce startups. If an internet startup fails it's likely because they had a boring product and/or marketed themselves poorly, or some other reason.
The barrier to entry for someone to create music these days is very low. Software is cheap, talent is cheap, and distribution (digital) is very cheap. So why would an artist expect to make more money making a song that took maybe 100 hours to make than a person who works 40 hours a week every week?
We don't hold this same criticism to pure e-commerce startups. If an internet startup fails it's likely because they had a boring product and/or marketed themselves poorly, or some other reason.
The barrier to entry for someone to create music these days is very low. Software is cheap, talent is cheap, and distribution (digital) is very cheap. So why would an artist expect to make more money making a song that took maybe 100 hours to make than a person who works 40 hours a week every week?