From Lord of the Ring, a 10 question NY Times Magazine interview with Bob Mould:
So it must be nice to return to the relative calm of the music business.
Oh, yeah, sure, although it’s got its own headaches. A lot has changed since I’ve been away.
Like what?
The Internet, MP3’s, digital theft. I’m afraid that the value of music is going down. And that’s a hard thing to combat because new artists are so desperate they’ll give everything away just to get attention.
It’s sad to say, but most musicians don’t understand the potential of the Internet any more than the decidedly clueless bagmen. Oh sure, they may have a shiny website, but when it comes down to it, it’s all about controlling distribution based on a scarcity model surrounding physical platters of some sort.