If you're talking about me personally, then I should say I don't have interest in being the "artist". I'm interested in writing and producing, though I want a finished product to have something to promote.
That's what I asked earlier...your goal...is it to promote yourself as an artist, or to promote just the songs/music, or both.
OK, Beiber...but that was about discovering a 15-year old kid, who fit a very specific category that covers that wide, early teen audience, which is a BIG money-maker. TBH...there were/are probably dozens of kids like that who could be molded into a money making machine for a rather easy to please young audience, with each new generation.
Honestly though...can you imagine Beiber now, as a 24-25 years old, never having been discovered before...trying to break out by posting his current music on YT.
I seriously doubt anyone would give him the time of day, considering the music style and his age...so he basically grew up into his current situation.
I think the same can be said for most of those kid stars, with few exceptions. They're basically done by their mid-twenties because they have not been able to generate a more mature audience...and the kids who listened to them at 15, are now into other stuff for the most part, as adults.
Anyway...I think there is an opportunity to promote music entirely via internet, and someone with serious clout may even find the music and consider it for some of their up-n-coming younger artists who don't necessarily write music...but IMO...you often need songs that can stand on their own, because usually they want to strip them down and re-record them with their big name production teams and all that...and they just want to send you a royalty check for the actual songwriting, and nothing more.
That can certainly be a lucrative situation, especially for songwriters who don't want to be artists or who don't really fit the kind of artist profile (for whatever reason) that the record people want...so then you just write the songs and let someone else deal with the rest.
Though again, you have to have songs that will stand on their own...something that can be reworked by them...rather than say, music that is very stylistic and depends a lot on your production and sound design to be interesting to people, and is not something that a publisher/producer would/could use for their own artist.
I was just reading in the current Tape Op magazine an interview with Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys, and it's mostly about his new studio in Nashville where he has production projects with young or unknown artists/bands, something he's doing apart from his Black Keys gig...and he's talking about all the great musicians there who have worked on many recording sessions over the years with various artists to help them make a good record. The big point was about the value of songs that when stripped down, could stand on their own, without dependence on a particular production style...that way, the musicians and artists who are going to record it, can make it their own, and it will still sound good.
I know there's all kind of music...everything from EDM/Hip Hop, which relies heavily on production for its sound...to your basic guitar-n-vocal stuff, which is almost 100% about the actual songwriting. So there's all kinds of paths someone can take.
I'm just saying that for *selling songs/music*...the better it can sound stripped down and basic, rather than depending on blown out productions, the better the chance of it being considered by a publisher or artist manager for their intended use.
I know you may be more into trying to promote your overall "sound" VS the actual "songs" at their stripped down state...and that's fine, there are certainly a lot of people who just want something new/different/same/whatever to add to their playlist. I'm just looking at it more from a purely songwriter perspective.
For me...it's about trying to step away more from the heavy production dependent songs...and looking to find ways to minimize that with more sparse approaches, so that the song itself pushes through, rather than depending on some "sound design"...but I know these days "sound design" is a big thing in much of Pop production, thought TBH....I think all that heavy sound design in some productions, takes away from the actual songs, and it's more about experiencing the sounds, the ear candy, rather then listening to the songs...if that makes any sense.
That's all the philosophizing about the current music industry I got for tonight...it's getting late.