In the bad old days, the only practical way you could really learn music was to get a patron, or somehow make a living out of it. The barrier to entry was sufficiently high that it was a full-time commitment, one way or another.
Today, it's still possible to be a full-time musician, but by far, most musicians have day jobs. You can do music as a hobby.
On one hand, high fidelity music reproduction lowered the demand for performers, as you note. On the other hand, cheap high quality music equipment lowered the barrier to entry. Today you can play your piano piece on a sub-$1k electric keyboard that's portable and never needs to be tuned. It even sounds good. My opinion is that, on balance, the net human artistic output is way up. I also have no data to support this. But it just feels right.
I also think net human artistic and creative output is up and we just don't realise it -- therefore we do not think clearly of the damage generative AI will do to how we feel about the value of our lives.
Today, it's still possible to be a full-time musician, but by far, most musicians have day jobs. You can do music as a hobby.
On one hand, high fidelity music reproduction lowered the demand for performers, as you note. On the other hand, cheap high quality music equipment lowered the barrier to entry. Today you can play your piano piece on a sub-$1k electric keyboard that's portable and never needs to be tuned. It even sounds good. My opinion is that, on balance, the net human artistic output is way up. I also have no data to support this. But it just feels right.