Recently someone made an interesting observation about paying money to have art made:
Sadly, commissining and promoting new music is an act of faith & idealism on behalf of an art that has almost no market value.
— Richard Bratby (@RichardBratby) August 5, 2017
Yeah—lots of “art” doesn’t make sense from the standpoint of return on investment. But then again, we have this:
https://twitter.com/SharknadoSYFY/status/893864563480940544
And I’m reminded of the claims that we need gatekeepers (i.e., contemporary patronage) to ensure the quality of art doesn’t degrade away.