This was a video created by vocal group Octarium and subsequently commented on by Alex Ross. It draws attention to how difficult it can be for people who want to make a living in music, not just non-profit groups, to thrive and how little an audience can care about that. Mr. Ross points out that he can’t understand why so many people don’t want to pay for their musical entertainment even while they’re willing to pay for over-priced flavored hot water, otherwise known as coffee, on a daily basis. I think the answer is simple: coffee has mass. When you walk into a coffee shop and order your tall cafe mocha latte decaf espresso you can expect that said coffee shop now has one less tall cafe mocha latte decaf espresso available for sale. You can also expect that they had to spend money to obtain that tall cafe mocha latte decaf espresso in the first place. Music, on the other hand, can be created and disseminated with literally no expense at all (studios have been shutting down left and right for the last decade for a very good reason). Even live music can be be an expenseless endeavor for the performers, assuming it’s not an opera company or an ensemble large enough to require a special size of venue. All that is required to produce these things is time and commitment. All that’s required to distribute the product of that time and commitment is an internet connection. So why should any consumer feel the need to pay for this? If coffee were so cheap to produce and could be replicated ad infinitum, do you think people would expect to have to pay for that as well?