Art has always served as humanity's most profound method of expression, connecting people across boundaries of time, space, and circumstance. Yet in our modern digital age, we face a critical question: should access to art be determined by one's ability to pay? While artists deserve compensation for their work, creating financial barriers to art fundamentally undermines its cultural purpose and social value. The true worth of art lies not in its price tag but in its ability to be experienced, shared, and appreciated.

Value of Art through consumption
Art is given value not just by the creator but by the consumers. If a piece of music is listened to, it has value. The value of a piece of art may not be proportional to its rate of consumption, but if art is not consumed, it has no value except to the one who made it. This is a significant value in and of itself, but if you want to put your art out to the public, the assumption is that you want it to have general value, which comes from its consumption. If this is the case, then why limit consumption by enacting monetary restrictions and then claiming it has more value that way? The acknowledgement of the value of art is represented primarily by the consumption of it, not by the monetization. Then it would be no different from a tool; then it would not be art. 

If one truly cares about the meaning of art, one would present it in a way that allows as many people as possible to gain access to it, to consume it and appreciate it, not locking it behind a paywall where only a limited number of people can see it. Saying art gains or reflects meaning from being restricted by the use of money to access it is pure hypocrisy and an insult to the very meaning of art. 

Economic Inequality & Access
Forcing consumers to pay for art means that people with less money who cannot afford to buy it are cut off. Does this mean that the less fortunate are unworthy of consuming art? Enacting pay restrictions to consume art perpetuates discrimination and unfairness aimed towards certain members of society who cannot afford to pay for things that aren’t necessities. However, art was never a necessity; it exists purely for the entertainment of the human species to indulge ourselves and add something extra to life. Who says that the unaffordable do not deserve that too, and should not gain access to some of the “extras” in life? 

This inequality in access doesn't just affect entertainment, it impacts education and cultural development. When art is financially inaccessible, we create a society where cultural literacy becomes a privilege rather than a right, further widening the gap between socioeconomic classes

After all, music is nothing like a fancy chandelier; at the end of the day, you absolutely need neither, but the former is a non-tangible thing, while the latter is. Since it is non-tangible, those that can’t afford physical things should be able to take pleasure in at least these non-physical joys, whereas money prohibits that.

Physical versus Digital art
More on physical art’s role in this argument: while some art can certainly take a physical form, like visual art in the form of paintings or paper drawings, the meaning derived from it, the reason for its existence and consumption, for the masses at least, is purely non-physical. Though visual art is physical in nature, generally much more meaning goes behind the imagery and feelings it evokes in the mind. The feelings that went behind its creation and the methods used to achieve printing those feelings onto a physical medium embody the meaning of the piece. Technique and intent are more important than the actual brush used to draw it. This is what I mean when I say art’s true meaning is more intangible in nature; even the physical elements are deeply rooted in a mental source.

Digital technology has fundamentally changed how art is reproduced and distributed. Unlike physical paintings that exist as singular objects, digital music or artwork can be infinitely reproduced with no loss of quality. This transformation challenges traditional notions of scarcity that have historically driven art's monetary value.

This meaning in intangibility is how art has worked for a long time, but the paywall behind it has started to treat art like some physical thing. Physical things have less personal meaning to us as humans than feelings and emotions which are intangible; this is what makes a tool for aiding in a certain function insignificant in our eyes, important though holds no personal meaning to us, but art is very precious to us because the meaning is in us personally, rather than only physical. Some physical objects impart special meaning to us, such as a stuffed animal from one’s childhood that they may cling to, and invokes a special feeling of nostalgia in them that is far more important than the object itself. However, art should not become one of those cases. Art should not be something that is viewed in a material sense foremost, as when one sees that stuffed animal, they believe that all the meaning of it is in the object itself rather than in their feelings, which is an incorrect notion. By making art only available by paying for it, those who are doing it are applying a material worth to art which is completely contradictory to its very purpose.

I’d also like to make an argument against the claim that listening to music without paying is like stealing a painting in an art exhibit. It’s possible to view a painting without owning it, which would require buying or stealing it. This is similar to how it’s possible to listen to a piece of music without owning it. Either way, the consumer would be appreciating the art. The rise of the internet has made it easier than ever to see a painting for free; anyone out there can look at a picture of it online. Granted, seeing a picture online isn’t quite like seeing the real thing, partly because the quality of most free photos online aren’t the best, although there are many professional, better quality photos out there that you can pay for. The best comparison to music I can make from this is that you can listen to music on your phone, or buy headphones, or speakers, and generally the better the quality of the playback device, the better quality music you can listen to. But in both cases, you aren’t paying for the art; you’re paying for the medium that the art is delivered to you on. 

Paying for a photographer to take high quality photos for you and paying for high quality headphones to listen to high quality music are examples of paying for the service used to bring you the art. Each is done personally: someone facilitated the making of those headphones, and someone went out to take a picture of that painting for you. They are each providing you with a service that is compensated, separate from the art itself which is not a service but a thing. If a potter makes 10 figurines by hand, they personally lend their services to make each figurine. Therefore, they should be compensated for their services 10 times, because each required a usage of their services. However, if the potter only makes one figurine, takes a picture of it and spreads it online, they only made one figure and only did the service once, therefore they only deserve to be compensated for their overall services once. The concept of music distribution is the same way: if you make the song once, then spread it to others, you only deserve to be paid for it once. How is it fair to all the potters who make all 10 figurines by hand? They perform their services personally. By this principle, you can pay overall for a service that allows you to listen to music because the people behind it work for the purpose of securing good quality music for you to listen to, if they so choose to charge you to make the money back, but it’s not right to pay for the individual copy of the music itself. 

Alternative Models
A better example of being compensated for services in the music sector is live performances. Live performances allow singers and music performers to give their service to others personally, so it makes sense for them to be compensated for their live work. Live performances are a great way of making money off music, as people can still listen to their music without paying, but can pay to get the premier experience of this music.

I don’t mean to disparage or undermine the effort music artists, composers, producers, and others in those lines of work put in to produce good art. It’s true that they should be compensated for their services. However, that compensation should not come from the pockets of consumers simply on the basis of needing to pay for art. There are more justifiable means of obtaining money from art than just putting up a paywall. Art has inherent meaning from consumption; charging to consume it doesn’t change anything about its value, and, if anything, even detracts from it. On behalf of everything that art stands for, making the consumption of any piece of art cost something is irrational and deprecating to art’s true meaning.

The viewpoint evokes modern standards to tackle a modern issue. When put in a different context, the central issue disappears. While it's true that standards have to evolve over time, principles remain the same. It's the principle of art being valuable and therefore costly that is stressed in the claim, not the standard of artists having to make a living. In terms of older music, such as classical music, where many of the popular composers are dead, making the music paid makes hardly any sense. The creator of the music is not making any money from it because they currently can't, so where is the money really going? There are organizations affiliated with dead composers that take fees on the music in their stead, but by the principle that art is valuable and consumers owe something to the person that created that value, the act of making the music paid should be directly helping the music's creator. Only then can the music's value be expressed, and by extension, only then can the creed of monetized music be expressed. This isn't happening with dead composers though, rendering the entire principle useless. This extension proves that the problem being described is one limited in its applicability in different circumstances; it's a purely modern sentiment that doesn't hold up in a historical context, and that would be okay if the whole ordeal wasn't pushing me toward a certain conclusion. The money is the real issue here, not the principle of music's value. In that case, there are multiple ways to address the problem in justifiable and reasonable ways.

Conclusion
A compromise can be reached here, one that degrades neither the artist's efforts nor the consumer's rights. For one, increase the amount that music services have to pay to acquire the music from the artist or producer in the first place. Then they are paying for the direct service of those who made the music because the raw, undistributed copy is being shared. Another way is to give artists a greater portion of the royalties that music services make from the streaming of their music, from sources like ads or fee to use the service. That fee might have to be adjusted to provide for artists, but this method avoids having to pay for every individual track in the first place.

Many actions can be taken to aid artists in need, but the idea of consumers needing to pay to listen to a piece of music or directly consume art in another way, is unreasonable and inappropriate in the context of the real world.

The future of art lies not in reinforcing paywalls but in developing more creative, equitable systems that maintain accessibility while supporting creators. Art has always served as society's most profound connector, transcending differences and revealing our shared humanity. By ensuring art remains accessible to all, regardless of economic status, we honor its true purpose: to be experienced, to move us, and to transform our understanding of ourselves and each other. The question isn't whether art has value, it's whether we value art enough to ensure everyone can experience it.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​