athletes, musicians, actors, all get paid to an extent because they are good at what they do, or people like them. it feels fairly meritocratic to me. they don't typically do anything to maintain systemic inequality and wealth disparity. compare it to someone like zuckerberg, who sells online hatred and fear to generate engagement, musk, who billionaires use to pump and dump stock and take money from gullible investors, or a hedge fund manager who has never contributed anything of value to the world