I would way rather have my product sold in Walmart. That's why Walmart suppliers are willing to accept such thin margins. Amazon's great for consumers. As a consumer, I like it that they have pretty much anything I would want to buy.
As a content creator, put me in Walmart any time, as I will be surrounded by a much smaller number of competing products. Being on the same shelf as big sellers Justin Bieber and Skrillex is a dream scenario for an emerging artist. My needs as a producer are way different from my needs as a consumer.
Um, you completely missed the point. Most niche products will never make it into Walmart. Just like most bands don't get much radio airplay. Those systems are optimized for pumping out a large volume of a limited selection. You see that, and can fantasize about being in that "top 100", but you're not following your logic to its conclusion with respect to the rest of musicians.
What's interesting is that even for the top 100 the Pandora model has the potential to scale to higher royalties than the radio model, which pays the same whether 1 or 1 million people listen to a broadcast. Less popular bands find niche audiences, more popular ones get paid for every single listen.
I would way rather have my product sold in Walmart. That's why Walmart suppliers are willing to accept such thin margins. Amazon's great for consumers. As a consumer, I like it that they have pretty much anything I would want to buy.
As a content creator, put me in Walmart any time, as I will be surrounded by a much smaller number of competing products. Being on the same shelf as big sellers Justin Bieber and Skrillex is a dream scenario for an emerging artist. My needs as a producer are way different from my needs as a consumer.