You say "we" as if you were speaking for all artists, but you do not speak for me.
In my view, the current model of selling a copy of a work to a customer as if it were a scarce good was dubious in the past and is downright unsupportable now. It simply doesn't map very well onto the underlying reality of effortless, unlimited digital copies.
What makes more sense is a patronage model - that is, have the customers fund the production of the work, rather than buy copies of it. (Think something along the lines of Kickstarter.) Once the work is produced, it is free for all to use at no further charge. (Though of course premium products could still be made - for example, signed, numbered, or customized editions.) This has a number of advantages: it eliminates the whole mess of DRM and copyright, it democratizes the process of allocating funding for artistic works, and it diffuses the risk of producing a large work among a potentially large number of people.
There are, of course, downsides to this model. It will generally be necessary to produce some initial portfolio of work unpaid so that the customers can trust that you'll be able to deliver. (Though really, an analogous situation exists in the current model.) And there are legal questions to iron out over what happens when a work doesn't get completed.
Still, I think that over the long term this will prove to be the right approach. It suits the reality of the products that artists are selling, and it is fair to everyone involved. It also makes it possible to cut out a whole gaggle of intermediaries and bureaucracy that stand between the artist or artists producing a work and the public. Not to mention eliminating the conflicts of interest that can make an artist the enemy of their own fans.
edit: Heh, you keep editing your comment, and I see that you too have noticed that artists have patrons now rather than customers in the traditional sense. The difference is that I see it as an opportunity and a good thing, and you see it as exploitive. And indeed, it certainly can be exploitive if one doesn't use a business model that suits this reality.
Sorry about the edits. And yes, I was trying to underscore the difference between patrons and customers. There is a profound distinction between them, just as there is a profound difference between a commercial business and an organized charity, and they relationships they have to the people who give them money.
What bothered me so much about the original comment is that the poster was so sloppy about this distinction. He'd treat the exchange like it was charity when that suited him, turn around and demand the very different regard that accrues to a customer when that became preferable, only to switch the frame back to a charity when that was most beneficial to him. It had a slipperiness that is transparently self-serving and one-sided. The guy, quite frankly, comes across like a weasel.
I'm not saying that people don't make money in the current environment, or that many people who would never have had opportunities in a more closed system aren't finding ways to do really great work now, or that ultimately, things can't work out for the best for artists and audiences alike. I'm just saying that this guy, in particular, has a problem with his ethics.
If you recognize that you're a patron, be sensitive to the serious inequality that comes with that status, and aware of the special deference to artists that is required to maintain a modicum of balance. And if you see yourself as a mere customer, then have the decency to behave like one, and actually pay. Every time. Not just if and when you happen to feel like it. But don't cherry pick the best of both - the status of one and the detachment of the other - while dodging the kind of clear definition that leves you with anything less than the upper hand at all times, because that's just being a dick.
You seem pretty angry and are arguing from an interpretation of the OP's post that I personally don't think really matches either the tone or the content of that post.
You also seem to forget that in many countries that support a strong book market, there has never been any requirement to buy books for a long time before the internet got going, due to the network of public libraries. I have been using the interlibrary loans scheme in the UK since I was 10 to order pretty much any books I wanted to read. Yet I still buy a lot of books. Which I then often give away to people and buy again. Given that everyone in the UK who reads knows that they never need to pay for books beyond the cost of a library card, why do they buy so many books?
In my view, the current model of selling a copy of a work to a customer as if it were a scarce good was dubious in the past and is downright unsupportable now. It simply doesn't map very well onto the underlying reality of effortless, unlimited digital copies.
What makes more sense is a patronage model - that is, have the customers fund the production of the work, rather than buy copies of it. (Think something along the lines of Kickstarter.) Once the work is produced, it is free for all to use at no further charge. (Though of course premium products could still be made - for example, signed, numbered, or customized editions.) This has a number of advantages: it eliminates the whole mess of DRM and copyright, it democratizes the process of allocating funding for artistic works, and it diffuses the risk of producing a large work among a potentially large number of people.
There are, of course, downsides to this model. It will generally be necessary to produce some initial portfolio of work unpaid so that the customers can trust that you'll be able to deliver. (Though really, an analogous situation exists in the current model.) And there are legal questions to iron out over what happens when a work doesn't get completed.
Still, I think that over the long term this will prove to be the right approach. It suits the reality of the products that artists are selling, and it is fair to everyone involved. It also makes it possible to cut out a whole gaggle of intermediaries and bureaucracy that stand between the artist or artists producing a work and the public. Not to mention eliminating the conflicts of interest that can make an artist the enemy of their own fans.
edit: Heh, you keep editing your comment, and I see that you too have noticed that artists have patrons now rather than customers in the traditional sense. The difference is that I see it as an opportunity and a good thing, and you see it as exploitive. And indeed, it certainly can be exploitive if one doesn't use a business model that suits this reality.