You're right. Marketing is expensive. Distribution is cheap these days, but often the two functions are colocated.

I would even posit that many popular creative works are commercially worthless, absent the expensive marketing. And in some cases, the marketing comes first and the creative work is basically an effort to fulfill the marketing spec. Implicitly or explicitly.

But like venture capital, the entertainment industry is sustained by the huge successes, and they are motivated to overspend on every attempt. This works in VC (for founders at least) but it doesn't work well for artists.

I don't have a solution, but I wish for something that would bypass the go-big-or-go-home model while fostering organic success. (And I'm thinking of the music industry primarily. Movies and books occupy different spots on the continuum, though some of the same issues do apply.)