For the greater good

We live in a digital world. It feels strange to say it in 2025, but it’s true, and even I forget to step back and think about what that means.

From my teenage years in the 1990s until now, the internet has been my constant companion, shaping both my work and play. It’s a part of me, like the air I breathe, the water I drink, and the food I eat.

However, over the past 30-odd years, we’ve witnessed a shift from the early, hopeful days of the internet—when it was about connection, inclusion, universal communication, and knowledge expansion—to a more cynical world.

Now, a handful of corporations and a few thousand billionaires control our individual, societal, and global wealth and well-being.

That’s not hyperbole.

They do not control us for our benefit and will not change things for our betterment. This world is the one they want, where they profit, and we pay the price for the privilege of existing in it.

It’s up to us to make a change.

Take music (not literally, that’s what they’re doing).

Music is the universal language (no, not Universal’s, despite its best efforts to corner the market). It embodies our identity and our very humanity in an experience we can have alone and share with others, even strangers.

It’s pure magic.

However, in 2025, music has become a rounding error in the spreadsheets of these giant businesses and their executives. Whether their angle is social or streaming, they aim to extract as much value as possible from each of us, including fans, artists, labels, and rights holders.

Our time is worth more than our money because time means engagement, and engagement makes investors’ eyes see dollar signs because, well, I’m unsure why.

But all that engagement on social and streaming media leads us down a dark path. Engagement alone doesn’t pay the bills for artists and those who support them.

And none of it is good for us as a people.

Of all the problems in the world, I often struggle with devoting my life to solving this one in particular.

But I refuse to accept their dystopia as our destiny.

Now more than ever, we must celebrate creativity and cultivate community.

Music is the perfect union of both.

Music is the song of life, love, and everything in between.

It is the song of our ancestors, contemporaries, and future generations. It is the path that leads us back to ourselves, right where we belong.

That’s a cause worth my time, energy, and money.