It would be wonderful to see some sort of reform in the music industry, but I can see a couple of potential issues with your ideas.

Firstly, increased consumer prices could easily create mass exodus of paying customers. Since they are likely to be music lovers, many will probably (re)turn to music piracy.

Luring these customers back into to paying at all will be much harder a second time.

My other issue is more technical, but still relates to this problem.

Are people who stream music online dragging all of popular music into an ever-shrinking search bubble. The way that any online music service (including YouTube) works has the potential to reinforce bad choices of follow up tune in something akin to a feedback loop.

Who among us hasn’t noticed a rapid degradation in music quality if you let any of these services run away with your playlist.

“I’d never do that”, you may be saying right now. Now think back to the last time you left the music running while you got in the shower (for example ), or during a work out, or while you relaxed and bit too deeply on the sofa after work.

Multiply this by a few million times, and it’s easy to see why the suggestions head back towards mainstream pop. That insipid-as-fuck band that usually has at least three tunes in the top 50?

There’s a chance that some of that success comes from the fact that punters who are inadvertently listening to this whilst sound asleep on the settee aren’t immediately roused into urgent playlist-changing action.

Apologies for the long answer by the way.