The numbers tell a different story.

Here's a graph of the total music industry revenue over time: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/music-industry-sales/

On top of this, do note that musicians are getting far less of a cut from streaming than they did from any other medium, and that today there are a lot more people in general and musicians in specific than there were in 1977, and that far more of the revenue goes to the top 0.1% of musicians and far less to everyone else.

This is not a happy picture!

Living and playing in New York City between 1983 and 2016, I saw the music business implode first hand. There used to be a whole area in midtown with multiple buildings entirely dedicated to recording music, and instrumentalists would just hang out in the lobby waiting for pickup gigs - all gone.

You could bring your four-piece band to a small club or bar and make a few hundred bucks in cash, even if it was weird avant-garde shit. All gone. The last show I played in New York City, I didn't even get a drink ticket!

I know not one but two Grammy-winning drummers, brilliant session musicians who played on albums you probably know, one thirty years older than the other, but both of them were forced out of the music industry in a very short period as all the jobs dried up.

The last fifty years have been a bloodbath for musicians in general, though I'm glad you have managed to do better.