Building on the paper poseted yesterday...

This is what i've been predicting for a couple of years now. As musicians start to be able to make high quality records on cheap equipment, the need for huge labels will decrease rapidly. the majors make bubble gum mass market crap for the most part, and exist to promote it, but they're ancillary to the process. If they vanished, the marketing would happen anyway, by the coolhunters at MTV and so on. at which point a viable method for individual artists (i.e. no label affiliation necessary) and indie labels to sell music electronically, and cheaply, increases the exposure people get to new music substantially.

when your production costs are low, you can sell for less and make more, and make a living as a musician, rather than try to play the rock star game.