Interesting reflection by two older musicians (Beato and Tim Pierce) about how the music industry used to have a "middle class" that's been pushed out now by an industry that focuses more and more on profits.
They don't really go into the details of how the changes happened, with big-corp #capitalism being the elephant in the room ... but their observations, which include tech, paint a pretty clear picture.
I remember a piece Harlan Ellison wrote back in the 1970s. He was working on television shows, and said that if he could save $1,000.00 he could live for six months and just write the stuff he really wanted to do.