this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2023
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Taylor Swift
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Most billionaires make their fortune exploiting people. Taylor has employees, song writers, producers, PR, etc, but I doubt any of those people feel exploited.
You could stretch it to say she's making money off the predatory scalper economy run by Ticketmaster, but unless she's buying and reselling the tickets herself, that's a bit of a stretch.
Do you actually think Taylor Swift opens her bank account and sees $1,000,000,000 in checking? The overwhelming majority of her wealth is tied to her owning her own catalog of music, which can either be licensed out or earn money directly through streaming/sales. Is she obscenely wealthy? Yeah, absolutely. Is it possible for her to "cut" her money up so that everyone who helped her gets an equal share? No, we're talking about very illiquid assets, not a cookie cake your mom brought in to share with the class.
Here's an article about how she was one of the first people in Hollywood to meet SAG-AFTRA Union demands in order to release her movie, including things like higher pay and better residuals towards crew with streaming.
She could transfer the IP rights of the song to a company, and then evenly distribute shares of that company to everyone who ever worked with her.
That's not an unreasonable point, but we don't actually know the distribution of income. We know she isn't busting unions at her record label or exploiting slave laborers to play bass on her albums. Her success is a direct result of her effort, her performance, and her creativity. Nobody does it alone, but nobody is claiming she's acted unethically (that I know of, but I admit I don't really follow her in the news).
I could be wrong. Maybe she's a horrible person when you get to know her. We do know that Jeff Bezos is a horrible person.
no one knows if bezos is a cunt excpet people close to him. the reason we know he is a cunt is the fact he is a billionaire.
We do know that Bezos is a cunt based on his track record on business practices and employer policies.
All billionaires make their fortune exploiting people.
I think you're right for the vast majority of billionaires, but I don't see how Taylor Swift exploiting people.
Taylor Swift makes 2,300 times the salary of the average person in the music industry. Her team generates vast amounts of money and she gets nearly all of it.
By sucking so much wealth out of the economy. By owning so much while there are people working three jobs to make rent. You don't have to actively club baby seals to profit from a predatory system.
I am a big fan of hers. But the way she exploits people is that she sells 3-5 copies of basically the same album but there are differences in art and Color or maybe one extra song that compels some fans to actually buy all of them. And sell honestly terrible merch through her store at a premium that they will also pay gladly for. It’s market manipulation and she is winning that game. She’s very good at capitalism but she seems to treat her staff well. Well enough in proportion to her? No probably not, but in proportion to the rest of the billionaire club’s employees, yeah.
I'm afraid you're pissing into the wind with this one, this crowd just wants to rage about billionaires, and nothing will get in their way.
All cops are bastards, all rich people are bad, and nuance is dead.
Not really, many people believe that wealth generated by workers should be distributed amongst those workers proportionally to their contributions. Especially in the music industry workers get very little pay for the amount of money they generate for the companies they work for. Taylor Swift also profits from this inherently exploitative construction.
Taylor swift is the star of the show, the entire reason the whole event exists. Of course she's the one making the most money.
You guys are cooked.
Ok? How does that contradict my statement?
Really difficult to understand, isn't it?
What's with the attitude?
For me it's not how she got it, it's how she's using it. So far, we have yet to really see her use a meaningful chunk of her money. We've seen her do some basic sums to local food pantries and charitable stuff here and there, but I want to see her spend an actual percentage of her fortune towards something good.
Things like helping stop climate change (after she has used that private jet so much and her tour releases a ton of emissions), donating more to LGBTQ+, or the biggest one, using her money to invest/start up her own label/rival to Ticketmaster.
The label one is important, as labels are seeing what she has done to recover her masters and are trying to stop other artists from doing the same. She could start her own label redefining the rules for musicians, and not only would it help but it would also make her even more in the long run.
One swiftie's opinion
It's not about how they got it. It's about amassing it.
I thought we were talking about the meme.
But, yes, acquisition (and how) of money is an arguably more important focus than amassing wealth that is wasted on and cannot possibly be a need of a single person.
To put into perspective, a few years ago I managed a workforce that cost ~$2.1B annually in wages, ~17,000 staff. The workforce comprised of four hospitals, dozens of aged and community care homes and clinics, mental health and suicide prevention support services, and dozens of community outreach services such as temporary housing, clothing and furniture donations, etc. It serviced the whole state and parts of the country.
This is what can be done with a certain single person's money. By all means have them enjoy their wealth, but at a certain point, I can't fathom what good amassed wealth is doing for anyone, including the individual.