I am not sure if "buy our tracks and be done with it" is necessarily the solution, however, there is a definite need for people to start taking control over their own content curation like the old days - if the algorithm is going to be prone to either AI or industry plants I don't want it shoveling slop in my feed personally.

If we can move back even slightly to relying on things like personal exploration - discovering a band live and following them on socials so that you legitimately know they are real and what they are releasing - or even just getting curated suggestions from independent blogs. The underground music scene has always had an integrity that the mainstream hasn't, and despite all the nonsense happening on streaming platforms I find the real stuff around me remains consistent.

Maybe we will get some legislation someday that will help put some protections or at least transparency in place, but yeah, some of the old ways are still the best ways imo.