What's wrong with it? I thought it was a great TED talk, she makes great points about new and emerging forms of artist-fan relationships and its advantages.
In a nutshell - it's much easier to rely on donations once somebody else (in Amanda's case, her label) has done the hard work of making you famous. If you're an artist with at best local fame, as most artists are, charge for your music.
I'm surprised more people don't see this. Releasing your music for free is only an advantage if you already have a built-in audience, or if you're something of a first-mover and can benefit from the novelty factor.
But then fast-forward a couple of years and find yourself in a situation where everyone is releasing free music, and you don't get any kind of visibility boost for releasing it for free. What you do have is a bunch of people who feel more entitled in acquiring your product for free.
Who is going to pay for music they've never heard though? Small artists have to give away their music if they're going to have any chance of breaking out of obscurity.
It starts to get more subtle at that point - for instance, finding ways to let listeners hear the music while still protecting scarcity. In other words, without the listener feeling like they own it. It's the sort of distinction that leads to why an artist would sign up for pandora but not spotify.
What's wrong with it? I thought it was a great TED talk, she makes great points about new and emerging forms of artist-fan relationships and its advantages.