No Stupid Questions

It's not the musicians' fault. https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/news/5006-new-hegemonies-streaming-platforms-and-music-production

Nothing under a capitalist economy is rewarded for merit, only profitability for the business owner or shareholders

At some point it because a binary thing.

You don't need to just be good at something.

You need to be good at something AND do something else. AND be likeable. AND be pretty. AND have good contacts. AND ...

And if any of those other things aren't the case, you don't become the super star.

Sometimes, it's being at the right place at the right time. Some things can be solved with money, or being the friend or child of a celebrity, and others can't.

To add all the other good comments here...

As a recording artist, it's nearly impossible to stand out unless you have a marketing machine behind you. That means a record label that can promote your work, get your songs placed on radio stations and streaming platforms, and (in the old days) manufacture and sell physical media through many different retailers.

As a touring performer, you also need a large crew of people working for you: booking venues, marketing your shows, ticketing, managing the logistics of set-up/tear-down/transportation, operating lights and sound during the show, etc.

In both of these scenarios, the musician is only one small cog in a large machine. And there are enough good musicians in the world that they are treated as largely interchangeable.

Merit as a musician can only take you so far. In any creative career, the big famous artists aren't just good at doing their craft, they're also very good at making business deals to sell them. And even that's not always enough to become a superstar, you also need luck - your breakout/masterpiece needs to coincide with the latest trend, and preferably early in your career - a one-hit-wonder might be enough, but maybe not.

There are millions of people in the world that are great singers. It's just a skill. To be famous you also need good material, contacts and lots of luck.

A friend of mine used to be in a band that had it's 15 minutes in the '90s. They broke up for some reason and years later she managed to form a new group and record an album. The contract with the label said that she had to organize the tour herself so she tried to get into some festivals but no one was really interested in this type of music. All the band members had other projects and one by one started leaving and she struggled to replace them. She was really good technically but that's simply not enough.

In answer to the making a good living:

Historically, record labels, then streaming becoming the norm allowing the collision between record labels and streaming services driving down the artist's cut. Now increasingly so more recently, Live Nation/Ticketmaster and similar live event conglomerates taking bigger cuts and liberties from the last line of revenue traditionally successful artists have. And it's at every level, there will be a local event promoter behaving as the live nation of local music in your area.

For new artists, most people discover music via streaming recommendations these days, if the algorithm doesn't smile on a given artist for whatever reason, they won't get played, and therefore they won't get signed (given more and more up and coming artists self publish their earliest stuff these days)

Hell from what i have seen is now a days, you become a YouTuber reality influencer first. Then you start your music career tying it to a cause in the news. Then bam you are number 1 on billboard.

It hugely depends on WHAT exactly those people do. We need new houses(and maintain older houses), so skilled builders will always be needed. Musicians... You see, we already have an enormous amount of music. I don't remember when I was listening to something post-2000. Most of the music I listen is from 70-80s. It is very-very-very difficult to get my attention in this situation. I am content with what I have already. Why would I even give a chance to the new musician? Only if I hear something randomly by chance. You can't rely on chance and randomness. I'm impressed that they still manage to live somehow.

It's just much more profitable for record labels to have a few superstars than thousands of mini-stars. A usual person won't follow and buy from 100 music artists. They'll buy from 1 to 10 or whatever. Having large fandoms allows you to sell more tertiary things like plush toys and shit like that, it wouldn't be feasible to do that for thousands of artists.

Large fandoms also make people feel like they belong, when there's a Swiftie fanclub in any small town with dozens of people there's a community, if only 1 person in a town were a fan of a specific artist, even if there's 1 in every town, the networking effect would just be basically nonexistent.

And in general there's just too many amazing musicians. People love making music and as such there's an oversupply. In addition to the above points that's just capitalist supply and demand in play.

Video killed the radio star

Simple concept of nationalization/globalization. Honestly I would say records or whatever the first tool of pre-recorded music distribution came out that the game changed. IE if we want music somewhere... 99% of the time, hiring live musicians is a pretty silly excess, and well if you are using pre-recorded music, your local band needs to go toe to toe against big record labels... which have highly talented artists, the best marketing and production resources in the world, data driven approaches to attempt to pick the most likely to appeal to the broadest group of people possible etc...

When it does come to live music... Generally speaking the people that do want it, are relatively low budget. If say you are running a bar, how much extra money would you anticipate live music from a relatively unknown band would bring you in a night. Most likely not much if any. On top of that a lot of people enjoy doing music, and there's just more musicians with pretty good talent, but lack of demand in places for them to go.

Fame comes with the right social connections and luck. Talent helps, but is secondary. Of course, if you have all three, you become very very well known and people will feel you deserve in some way the fame and fortune you have.