This is actually the definition of competition. You are just being drowned by AI music so no one can discover your music. Steam had the same issue years ago with asset flips drowning out the discoverability of actual titles and they implemented many curating tools to help resolve the issue. Acting like AI music isn't having a similar effort on genuine musicians is just playing dumb.

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peab 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

as a musician, the internet has made it that there already is a shit ton of competition. AI will make it worse sure, but it was already a 'problem' and never going to be solved.

The thing is, you aren't entitled to distribution.

Most musicians who make it these days work really hard at doing live shows, or growing a following on tiktok.

once they have an audience - who cares about competition?

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Workaccount2 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The hardest pill to swallow as a musician is that despite everyone who ever listened to you telling you you're great, despite being in a band and playing shows, despite maybe even selling some merch...if you are not in the top 1%, you probably will never even get chance to play a show that might put you on someone meaningful's radar.

	▲	butlike 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I hear you and feel you on this being a hard (hardest) pill to swallow, and I think I have a helpful phrase. It helped me quite a bit so I hope it helps you: 'For the love of the game.' When you don't make any money and no one comes to your shows; when the booking emails go unanswered and the likes on soundcloud remain <10, just remember why you picked up the instrument in the first place. For the love of the game.

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autoexec 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> The thing is, you aren't entitled to distribution.

That applies to people spamming AI slop too. People are right to complain about spammers. Platforms are right to try to stop spam, even though everyone knows that spam is a problem that is never going be solved.

> Most musicians who make it these days work really hard at doing live shows, or growing a following on tiktok.

Live shows, by their nature, have almost zero reach. A performance for 40 people takes place once in a single location at a specific time and then it's over. You're either there when it happens or you missed it. A song on youtube or bandcamp can be heard by millions quickly over a few weeks or gradually over years. Social media was a massive boon for musicians.

Sadly, it will get substantially harder to grow a following on tiktok or any other social media platform if those platforms are flooded with AI generated garbage. Real artists will be harder to find. Anyone doing anything new will be drowned out by AI regurgitating everything old. When creative people can't succeed, the creativity they'd inspire in others is lost and everything stagnates.

	▲	chung8123 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		What you call slop others may enjoy. Calling stuff AI slop doesn't mean it isn't someone's art.

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kazinator 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I feel that human artists as a class are more entitled to distribution than generated slop.

And decisions like Bandcamp's above reflects essentially the same view.

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anthonypasq 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

if no one wants the slop, then its not competition. the problem is that people do actually want the slop and artists are mad about it.

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Ritewut 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

That's not how discoverability works. If it becomes too much of a chore to sort through the swamp people will often just opt for whatever is popular.

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nomel 8 hours ago | parent [-]

All of the "discoverability" algorithms are specifically and fundamentally about sifting through the millions to find the few that are preferred. That is their many-billion-dollar industry purpose. Spotify does a fantastic job with this, for me.

> will often just opt for whatever is popular.

Are you suggesting that people consume media they don't like? I'm not familiar with anyone that does this. I personally skip if I don't like a song even a little.

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teucris 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> All of the "discoverability" algorithms are specifically and fundamentally about sifting through the millions to find the few that are preferred.

They are fundamentally about finding the content that will generate the most revenue. That changes the dynamics quite a bit.

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nomel 7 hours ago | parent [-]

You're not wrong, but the need to please the user is still paramount, otherwise they'll just do something else. This is why TikTok is eating everyone's lunch.

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Ritewut 7 hours ago | parent [-]

I don't agree with this and to answer the question you originally asked me, I do think users are consuming things they don't actually enjoy. The goal isn't to please the user, the goal is to not bore the user. If you talk to people I'm sure you'll find a lot of the music they listened to isn't "enjoyed" so much as it is inoffensive background noise.

	▲	nomel 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It's not surprising that some people are mindless consumers, but it's not useful to assume the majority is, especially of paying customers, and competition exists.

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JohnFen 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> I'm not familiar with anyone that does this.

I see this a lot, actually. People put things on in the background, for instance, and don't really care if they like it or not (as long as they don't hate it). They just want noise. Or people just scrolling through their feeds without genuinely liking much in them.

In the old days, this was also how the majority of television was watched. People watched TV out of habit, and frequently watched things they didn't like because choices were limited and often there was nothing they actually like on. Thus all the complaints in the day about how "there's nothing on TV".

People are willing to sacrifice quite a lot of real enjoyment for convenience.

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kraquepype 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Many people don't care because it sounds like music.

It sounds like music, because it was generated by a model that was trained on actual music.

It is music that has been chewed up and regurgitated. It provides no benefit to the actual artists whose music fed that model.

	▲	anthonypasq 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		should artists pay royalties in perpetuity to their teachers and musical inspirations?

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sapphicsnail 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I have not met a single person offline who wants more AI music

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anthonypasq 7 hours ago | parent [-]

AI music gets millions of listens, idk what to tell you dawg.

	▲	stephen_g 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Sure it's almost entirely things like background music in shops and cafes where nobody is actually paying real attention to the music? I find it hard to believe anybody is actively listening to that kind of stuff (apart from perhaps checking our some of the more notorious cases for novelty value).

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peab 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

but people do want it. people who listen to top 40 want slop. most people want slop

	▲	butlike 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		At least top 40 has a room of engineers and at least they're getting some compensation. Yes, I understand splits are a bloodbath.