Dear indie friends,

There is a sentence I hear far too often. "My song reached ten thousand streams."

Congratulations, but "What did you earn?"

…Silence. Then a smile, usually followed by: "Enough for a coffee." 😀

Sometimes not even that.

Somewhere along the way, the music industry managed to create a remarkable illusion.

We celebrate millions of streams. We rarely ask what they actually mean.

This week's topic is part of a series exploring some of the classic frustrations faced by independent artists, always ending on a hopeful note. These weekly editions will be our lighter summer format.

Keep reading, there will still be news every week. Then, in September, we'll be back with tons of new content and exciting updates.

Take care until then!

I call it The Alms Royalties.

Not because streaming is evil. Not because technology failed.

Streaming solved an extraordinary problem. It made almost the entire history of recorded music available to almost everyone.

That is an incredible achievement.

But solving access is not the same as solving value. Today, music is consumed more than ever. Yet many of the people creating it struggle to make enough to continue creating.

That contradiction deserves a conversation.

The greatest danger isn't low income.

It's low expectations. When artists repeatedly hear that thousands of listeners are worth only a few dollars, something begins to change inside them.

Not only financially but also psychologically.

They start lowering their ambitions. They stop investing in recordings. They postpone buying better equipment. They abandon projects that require musicians, studios or orchestras.

Some quietly stop making music altogether. Not because they lacked talent. Because they eventually concluded that society simply didn't value what they created.

That's a devastating conclusion for any artist to reach.

Imagine another profession. Imagine a carpenter building ten thousand tables. A writer selling ten thousand books. A baker serving ten thousand customers. A photographer delivering ten thousand portraits.

Would anyone expect those achievements to produce almost no income?

Probably not.

Yet in music, we have become strangely accustomed to celebrating huge audiences while accepting tiny rewards.

Success has become disconnected from sustainability. And when those two drift apart... artists begin disappearing, quietly.

One unfinished album at a time.

Perhaps we've become confused about what we're paying for.

Streaming platforms sell convenience. Artists create meaning.

Those are not the same product.

The app helps us reach the music. The artist gives us a reason to stay. One builds the road. The other creates the destination.

Without songs... the platform is silent.

Without listeners... the songs remain unheard.

Neither exists without the other. Which is why this conversation should never become "artists versus platforms."

It should become "how do we build an ecosystem where both can thrive?"

Fortunately, something beautiful has been happening. More listeners are beginning to understand the difference between listening... and supporting.

Buying an album on Bandcamp. Joining a membership. Purchasing vinyl. Attending a local concert. Ordering a T-shirt. Backing a crowdfunding campaign. Sharing a release with friends.

None of these actions are enormous on their own. Together, they tell artists something priceless. "Please keep going."

Sometimes encouragement is worth more than the payment itself.

Sometimes it comes wrapped inside the payment.

Independent musicians may never compete with major labels in scale. But they possess something equally valuable.

Proximity.

A listener can write directly to the artist. The artist can answer. A community can emerge around a handful of songs. Support becomes personal instead of transactional. A purchase is no longer simply a purchase. It's a vote of confidence.

It's someone saying, "I want there to be another album."

That changes everything.

This may be an uncomfortable thought. Perhaps no single revenue source should carry the entire weight of an artist's career.

Streaming. Bandcamp. Concerts. Merchandise. Licensing. Teaching. Patreon. Commissions.

Each one alone may be fragile.

Together... they create resilience.

Not because artists should work harder.

Because creative lives have always been built from many small streams rather than one large river.

Every Friday at 4:00 PM (Brussels time) a new episode of Le Salon Indie de Mitxoda will take place on salon.mitxoda.be, don’t miss it.

The value of a song cannot be measured by what a platform pays for a stream. Its real value lives somewhere else.

In the person who cried while listening. In the couple who met because of it. In the teenager who decided not to give up. In the memory it will still awaken twenty years from now.

Some things are priceless.

That doesn't mean the people who create them should be.

With love, always,
🖤 Mitxoda

END 😆