I agree. On the whole, with a service economy and comparative advantage, we should be better off as a result. Automation, however, is redistributing a greater share of wealth to those with capital. The adverse side effects of that phenomenon, which is unstoppable, are being conflated with outsourcing, which can be disincentivized. People know as a fact that things used to be better when there were more manufacturing jobs around. They are simply acting on what they know instead of confronting a novel problem with a novel solution. Rethinking education and the cost thereof would be a good place to start.

I'm not sure how, but I'm very sure that our current model makes no sense. The cost of producing media is all up-front now. It used to be that it cost a lot up front, and a lot to distribute. We would charge people on the distribution side, because that was easier. Now that there is no need for a distribution system, we need to find better funding systems for those companies, rather than relying on the physical media mindset.

People are still paying a lot of money right now to fund media even though they can get it for free. It's not that people won't or don't want to pay, it's that we're paying on the wrong side of an outdated economic model.

Not at all. I'm arguing that paying artist per album is a stupid model that doesn't reflect reality. The only reason we pay per album is that it made sense when distribution was hard. Now that distribution is a solved problem, we need to adjust our economic model to match.