As another follow-up to yesterday's post on a speech by Ian Rogers (Topspin Media, ex-Yahoo Music) about, for lack of a better summary, the future of music, here's a link to coverage today at TechCrunch. Skip the post and go straight to the commentary. You get everything from (paraphrasing loosely here) "Technology will kill labels -- Kozmo.com should have been the next eBay" to "Less popular music is less popular because it sucks." And plenty of opinion in between. Rogers even left a comment.

What is missing from the discussion is the competitive role technology will play for music's middle class. Forget any Utopian ideas of a growing, more self-sufficient middle class. I understand that may be difficult when we're frequently presented with success stories big (Nine Inch Nails) and small (Josh Rouse). But don't forget the stories of mediocrity and failure. There are plenty of them. Case studies and success stories sell a product and a vision. They do not accurately represent the entire marketplace.

The best assumption is -- short of the emergence of government endowments and grants for everyday musicians -- the middle class will stay about the same size, and consuming spending on music will stay about the same. Given those assumptions, middle class artists will use digital technologies in heightened competition with other artists. New tools aren't about growing the middle class, they're about enabling a portion of artists to divert money away from other artists. Today's ease and low cost of production and distribution have lowered the barriers to entry. Naturally, the market will see an influx of new entrants. The barriers to success, however, even modest success, are still there.