Indeed. On the other hand, I also know my limitations, since roughly half the people I play with are pro's with music degrees. And I'm still trying to improve.

I'm inspired by the quote from Pablo Casals when he was in his 90s. They asked him why he still needed to practice, and he said: "Because I'm finally beginning to see some improvement."

Did most artists (in whatever form) ever have a good living in and of itself?

No. The best/luckiest did, at least some of the time. Most didn't.

Yes. Mostly, until relatively recently on a historical time scale. In the middle ages, musicians were employed by towns, and had a guild. They also worked for princes, the church, etc. I read an article saying that they often did double duty as cops on market days.

There was perhaps less of a distinction between "arts" and trades. People did all kinds of work on paintings, sculptures, etc., and expected to get paid for it. They rarely put their names on their works.

I've read a bit about Bach's life, and he was always concerned about making money.

One music history textbook I read identified the invention of printed music as the start of the "music industry." Before the recording era, people composed and published sheet music. There were pianos in middle class parlors, and people bought sheet music to play. Two names that come to mind were Scott Joplin and Jelly Roll Morton. Movie theaters hired pianists or organists, though that employment vanished when talking movies came out. The musicians of the jazz era were making their livings from music. One familiar name is Miles Davis. His father was a dentist, and his parents considered music to be a respectable middle class career for their son. People did make a living from recordings before the Internet era. Today, lucrative work in the arts still exists for things like advertising and sports broadcasting.

(Revealing my bias, I'm a jazz musician).

In fact the expectation that an artist should not earn a decent living is kind of a new thing.

Ah, one of the luxuries of not having to support myself from music... I have no interest in making recordings. That audience means nothing to me.

Right, before the internet the labels were great to artists!...

Piracy didn't fuck artists over I think (anecdotal), because it was the precursor to Spotify which has been great for artist discovery. Until the industry / artists caught on and started pushing shit. And the payment model for Spotify is bad, a million streams earns about $3-5K according to a quick google and few actually get that far.

But it's good for discovery, and artists generally don't make much off album sales either; concerts and merchandise is where it's at.