29 Nov 2020

My ten cents for ugly capitalism

I havenā€™t been writing this log in a while, so iā€™m not exactly happy to resume with announce of another compromise iā€™m making. But thatā€™s how itā€™s gonna be, ā€˜cause i am already late to tell my imaginary readers about this.

So here it is: in order to get funding for my art iā€™m willing to give 10-15% of that to a company supporting things i have been standing against all this time ā€” and i still am ā€” copyright, ā€œstreamingā€ (iā€™m yet to write separate post on that, but in short, itā€™s that lie that streaming and downloading are two conceptually different things). Iā€™ve tried to do the right thing, to only use libre open platforms, but this havenā€™t been going far ā€” neither in popularity, nor in money, so itā€™s official: my music is now being published on bandcamp and iā€™ll try to get fans there and make money. Of course, i would prefer direct crypto donations, but i canā€™t be fighting every fight there is and keep my life (which is an important point ā€” because if i have to sacrifice my life for the cause, it kinda defeats the purpose). People do use this big ugly capitalist (iā€™ll leave the judgment of whether capitalism can be not ugly for separate discussion) platforms and thereā€™s not gonna be a significant change without reaching enough people.

Back in spring i had this argument about the dilemma of reaching out using ā€œdirtyā€ methods vs keeping true to principals, however small the audience. Though i argued on the second side, it is widely known that i was always making some compromises (the question of whether itā€™s even possible not to iā€™ll leave hanging), sliding in one direction or another. But the more interesting point about that argument is the question of what i really care about. Can i really care about judgment of people who wouldnā€™t care enough to understand my motives? For a long time i did, because i was one of them. I didnā€™t want to be misunderstood by people like me.

And i still donā€™t. But in a maze of hundreds and thousands of ā€œwantsā€ and ā€œdonā€™tsā€ there is no chance to avoid choosing some of them over others. So be it and let the future make its judgment.

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