Rebecca Giblin on chokepoint capitalism

Rebecca Giblin on chokepoint capitalism

It really is a ripoff. I have 5 tracks on a comedy album available on all the popular streaming platforms. The album was released 5 months ago. I've accrued an amazing $0.34 in royalties. That is $0.00337 for each time someone listens to my comedy. I can't withdraw a payout until it reaches $5, which at this rate will take more than 8 years.

To put that into context, I recently did a 15-minute set at a tiny pub near a university. For that one independently-produced local show, I made more than 115x my entire royalties earnings. (Yeah, I'm not getting rich off comedy...)