Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Epic Games Sale of Bandcamp Has Left the Artist-Friendly Music Platform in Limbo

wired.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–59 of 59 posts

Re: Epic Games Sale of Bandcamp Has Left the Artist-Friendly Music Platform in Limbo

#51

Post by marcinzm »

qwery wrote: post #44
dralley wrote: post #9

So many great companies die this way. Bought by a big corporation with no idea what to do with all their money, neglected, then sold to some monopolist that doesn't give a damn outside of squeezing the market.

It's true. Except it was the people in charge of the great company that sold it to the big corporation / monopolist in the first place. Bandcamp was doomed when it was sold to Epic -- everybody knew that. They knew that doing that was bad for the product and bad for the company and they did it anyway, because they didn't and don't give a damn.

So what should they have done? Continued running the company until the day they died? Then what? Converted it to a non-profit/co-op/etc. and effectively donated 90% of their net worth and tens of millions of dollars (a tall order for most people)?

Re: Epic Games Sale of Bandcamp Has Left the Artist-Friendly Music Platform in Limbo

#52

Post by g-b-r »

Wow I had not heard about the acquisition by Epic, I was heartbroken, but this Songtradr seems much more likely than Epic to leave Bandcamp what it is.

Not transferring the employees (and their union) though is very worrying, I hope they'll step back on that.

I found out that Songtradr had also acquired 7digital, my go-to general music store (the only vast drm-free store with decent privacy policies that I could find)

Re: Epic Games Sale of Bandcamp Has Left the Artist-Friendly Music Platform in Limbo

#54

Post by xboxnolifes »

marcinzm wrote: post #51
qwery wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true. Except it was the people in charge of the great company that sold it to the big corporation / monopolist in the first place. Bandcamp was doomed when it was sold to Epic -- everybody knew that. They knew that doing that was bad for the product and bad for the company and they did it anyway, because they didn't and don't give a damn.

So what should they have done? Continued running the company until the day they died? Then what? Converted it to a non-profit/co-op/etc. and effectively donated 90% of their net worth and tens of millions of dollars (a tall order for most people)?

You can run a company for-profit, and still make a good product that respects their customers.

Re: Epic Games Sale of Bandcamp Has Left the Artist-Friendly Music Platform in Limbo

#55

Post by praisewhitey »

marcinzm wrote: post #51
qwery wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true. Except it was the people in charge of the great company that sold it to the big corporation / monopolist in the first place. Bandcamp was doomed when it was sold to Epic -- everybody knew that. They knew that doing that was bad for the product and bad for the company and they did it anyway, because they didn't and don't give a damn.

So what should they have done? Continued running the company until the day they died? Then what? Converted it to a non-profit/co-op/etc. and effectively donated 90% of their net worth and tens of millions of dollars (a tall order for most people)?

They should have retired and put someone else in charge of operations.

Re: Epic Games Sale of Bandcamp Has Left the Artist-Friendly Music Platform in Limbo

#56

Post by qwery »

marcinzm wrote: post #51
qwery wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true. Except it was the people in charge of the great company that sold it to the big corporation / monopolist in the first place. Bandcamp was doomed when it was sold to Epic -- everybody knew that. They knew that doing that was bad for the product and bad for the company and they did it anyway, because they didn't and don't give a damn.

So what should they have done? Continued running the company until the day they died? Then what? Converted it to a non-profit/co-op/etc. and effectively donated 90% of their net worth and tens of millions of dollars (a tall order for most people)?

Your response seems disproportionate, maybe you read a bit beyond what I actually wrote?

To respond to your question anyway: I don't really like telling people what to do (don't tread on anyone and all that) but if it was up to me to choose what they did, then not selling the company to Epic, or any other hungry hungry corpos, would have been a default stance.

Considering how successful the platform is/was -- and the excellent financial situation they apparently were in for the last decade -- it seems like selling the company to Epic (a random and unnatural fit) would be a gamble at best. There's a negligible chance that it could have ended well for the artists or the users but I'm sure it's ending well for some of those involved.

Also, yeah, convert your business to a not-for-profit or hand it down to the employees when you're dying / done with it. That sounds like the sort of thing that makes the world a better place, which is commendable.

Re: Epic Games Sale of Bandcamp Has Left the Artist-Friendly Music Platform in Limbo

#57

Post by epsylon »

emmanueloga_ wrote: post #25

Honest question, what does Bandcamp provide? As far as I can tell, it has music file storage gated behind a paywall (or not, plenty of music is offered for free), a few very basic functionalities like liking/wishlisting albums, and “following” musicians (fwiw… not sure what’s the value of that… a personalized feed?) and… that’s pretty much it? I guess the front page, which I assume boost sales a little bit for the in…

> Honest question, what does Bandcamp provide?

Actual money going to the actual people who make the music you listen to on spotify.

Re: Epic Games Sale of Bandcamp Has Left the Artist-Friendly Music Platform in Limbo

#58

Post by mistyvales »

secretsatan wrote: post #38
mistyvales wrote: post #23

Waiting for Discogs to die soon (as it has slowly been for a few years).

I haven't checked in on it in ages, I thought it was doing what it always did, I really wish a service would just stick to what it's good at. Catalogue my vinyl and give me the opportunity to interact with fellow enthusiast

The sad part is that the catalogue was ALL user-originated so if the company sells or goes under, a decade-plus worth of work could just be gone.

Re: Epic Games Sale of Bandcamp Has Left the Artist-Friendly Music Platform in Limbo

#59

Post by solarkraft »

prepend wrote: post #42
solarkraft wrote: post #41

This is about the only time I'll defend the modern idea of "NFTs". I want to show off the albums I bought to the world, ideally with some way to prove that I really spent money on them. The albums are comparable to NFTs (though fungibility is arguable in both cases), with the caveat that the Bandcamp system is entirely centralized. If the company goes bust, so does my collection. Though I appreciate that their ethics…

I think there are systems like this like last.fm/audioscrobbler that already scratch this itch by logging every song you listen to. So you can show your interest in an artist by listening to them. I don’t want to buy an NFT to “show off albums I bought” as this seems like no real new value to me. I can already show off these albums I listen to (much better than just bought I think).

This probably relates to whether you put more value on money or your time.

Personally, I don't want to collect all music that I listen to (which I can do for virtually free through streaming services). I also find the likes of last.fm cool, but for different reasons.

I'm looking for the digital equivalent of a CD/vinyl collection, which these are not.

Post reply on HN