Sterling Proffer

Record labels are digging their own grave. They finally have achieved their dream—which is to make money while doing as little work as possible. But the end result is a world in which they add so little value that no successful musician will want them any longer.

On TikTok, new songs surge or flop based on how effectively they entice users to perform some slapdash feat: a simple dance, a costume change sourced from the bedroom closet, a cute or cringe confession. With a booming, young user base, TikTok has become a music-promotion ecosystem of extreme importance. That ecosystem thrives on calculated... See more

Creators and communities do what they do because they love their world, and they want to invite more people into it. It’s about delivering non-replicable value to passionate audiences. As you scale, you will reach a point where it’s impossible — indeed, damaging — to devote more hours of the day to creative endeavors.

Just at least consider that the place where you are wrong might be the most fertile ground for connecting with and receiving others. And in a beautiful twist, being soft in your rightness, as opposed to smashing people with your brilliance, can open others up to whatever wisdom you’ve accumulated.

From the point of view of Buddhist economics, therefore, production from local resources for local needs is the most rational way of economic life, while dependence on imports from afar and the consequent need to produce for export to unknown and distant peoples is highly uneconomic and justifiable only in exceptional cases and on a small scale.