This is a time budget: $x+y$ is time spent on art and discussion, $x/X+y/Y$ is time spent finding discussion partners, and $I$ is the total time available. A larger audience $X$ or $Y$ means less time searching and more time enjoying the art. Money is useful because others accept it. Stardom works similarly: a widely known artist gives people a shared cultural reference, making discussion easier even when other artists are equally talented. Area $A$ is the initial enjoyment lost by switching to an unfamiliar artist. Area $B$ is the later gain from easier access to other fans. Switching pays only if $B>A$, so familiarity can make sticking with an obscure favorite worthwhile. #### TL;DR In this paper Moshe Adler explains how equally talented artists can achieve vastly different levels of success. We learn to appreciate art partly by discussing it with others, so popular artists offer an advantage: knowledgeable fans are easier to find. Popularity creates value rather than simply reflecting superior talent. The model presented in this paper shows that popular artists can even charge more than equally talented rivals, because fans save time finding people to learn from and talk to. Shared familiarity has value of its own. Enjoyment grows with exposure, $u'>0$, and each additional listen becomes more rewarding, $u''>0$. Think of an album that gets better the more you know it. This familiarity is consumption capital: it can make knowing a few artists deeply more rewarding than knowing many superficially. Artist $Y$ may offer greater enjoyment yet $X$ can be the better choice once prices and search time are included. What matters is the total enjoyment a listener can get within their budget. Moshe Adler is an economist who studied mathematics at Tel Aviv University and earned his doctorate in economics at UCLA. He has taught at Columbia University and Empire State College, and is the author of Economics for the Rest of Us: Debunking the Science That Makes Life Dismal. The popular artist can charge more, provided the premium is smaller than the value of the time fans save finding discussion partners. The wage $w$ converts that time into money.