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About half of Bandcamp employees have been laid off

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Re: About half of Bandcamp employees have been laid off

#41

Post by NewJazz »

stryan wrote: post #23
brink wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use Bandcamp a lot. Tbh, if I had acquired Bandcamp, in efforts for streamlining, I probably would have laid the editors off too. I've never read a single bandcamp article. Did anyone actually read them, especially enough to justify their cost?

Their niche genre articles were actually pretty good, I would read them every now and then to find new bands to listen to. They hit a nice sweet spot of highlighting five or so releases per article so that you weren't overwhelmed with picks but had options, and the writing surrounding them was usually pretty good, you could tell the authors really cared about the music.

Yeah same. I didn't read the articles often, but the ones I did I usually walked away with at least one new artist I enjoyed.

Re: About half of Bandcamp employees have been laid off

#42

Post by biorach »

winternett wrote: post #19

As a musician once on there, I joined, spent a lot of time carefully designing my page and uploading my catalogue, and then I paid $20 a month for their premium service for absolutely no traction on the site beyond external promotion I did. The UI on BandCamp has been vastly outdated for ages now, it was very hard to navigate and find new music by genre. i only go there to buy music if I have a direct link. It's a pr…

> i only go there to buy music if I have a direct link.

> Bandcamp doesn't even allow YouTube video embedding for music videos, which is a huge mistake alone.

> Music platforms should be heavily promoting any independent artist that pays them a monthly fee... They seem to think that monthly subscription money form hard working artists is simply for extra file storage above free accounts.

You haven't really understood the value Bandcamp offers and you're criticising them for not being something they never claimed to be.

You need to do your own promotion.

Re: About half of Bandcamp employees have been laid off

#43

Post by WXLCKNO »

artursapek wrote: post #33

Interest rates can’t go down soon enough innit

Facts may be different but it doesn't feel like any lessons were learned.

10+ years of free money and excess and less than two years into higher rates without any significant market correction for stocks or housing we should lower interest again?

Re: About half of Bandcamp employees have been laid off

#44

Post by amrocha »

wutwutwat wrote: post #25

Bandcamp is an odd site. It's existed for a very long time and is simple (or was when I last used it a couple years ago) in terms of application requirements. Basically what I'm saying is it feels very much like a rails app you could build in a weekend. Direct upload mastered files to s3 from the artists, activejob to convert to various formats and throw back to s3 via activestorage, subdomain model scoping for artis…

Here's a hypothetical scenario:

- You're running the successor to Bandcamp

- You're making good money, employ a couple staff

- Epic comes to you offering millions to buy your business

The rational choice is to sell. Would you choose the stress of running a sustainable business over the payout? I know I wouldn't.

There's no indication afaik that Bandcamp was in financial trouble before they got acquired. This is inevitable in the current ecosystem.

Re: About half of Bandcamp employees have been laid off

#45

Post by dharmab »

amrocha wrote: post #29
winternett wrote: post #19

As a musician once on there, I joined, spent a lot of time carefully designing my page and uploading my catalogue, and then I paid $20 a month for their premium service for absolutely no traction on the site beyond external promotion I did. The UI on BandCamp has been vastly outdated for ages now, it was very hard to navigate and find new music by genre. i only go there to buy music if I have a direct link. It's a pr…

What's wrong with a paid storefront for artists? Considering the rest of the ecommerce ecosystem, 20$ seems fair. Have you considered that 20$ is just the cost of doing business? Discoverability is a problem yes, but I don't know that it's a solvable one. And if Bandcamp tried seriously to solve it, they would likely have to rely on investment money, and eventually enshittify the platform.

$240/yr is too much for simple hosting- a small artist can get that for free these days, especially if they don't need DRM. For the price you'd expect promotion and discovery.

Re: About half of Bandcamp employees have been laid off

#47

Post by stronglikedan »

NewJazz wrote: post #37
diggan wrote: post #27

Judging by the Bandcamp United's (Union about to form at Bandcamp) feed, it seems they were nearing the completion of their initial steps to ask SongTradr to recognize and negotiate with the union. The "Last Call" post was made just 4 days ago: https://union.place/@bandcampunited/111219165521125342 Wonder if it ever got started or SongTradr tried to nip this whole thing in the bud?

Could this be considered a union busting action? Especially if the union was planning to negotiate for remote work. Edit: previously said strike breaking instead of union busting.

Perhaps not, if the union is not yet recognized.

Re: About half of Bandcamp employees have been laid off

#48

Post by hamburglar »

ezconnect wrote: post #31
hamburglar wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure where you got the idea that the premium service included promotion. Last I looked, the subscription simply unlocked some specific features. If you just paid for it and hoped that meant your band was going to be promoted, you threw your money away, but that hardly seems like bandcamp’s fault.

He's thinking of engagement and discovery like youtube or the old MySpace experience for independent music creators. People land on the page and discover new artists and easy discovery of new ones.

Ok, but still, that isn’t something bandcamp claims to do. How can one be upset they didn’t get that?

Re: About half of Bandcamp employees have been laid off

#49

Post by LegitShady »

dharmab wrote: post #45
amrocha wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with a paid storefront for artists? Considering the rest of the ecommerce ecosystem, 20$ seems fair. Have you considered that 20$ is just the cost of doing business? Discoverability is a problem yes, but I don't know that it's a solvable one. And if Bandcamp tried seriously to solve it, they would likely have to rely on investment money, and eventually enshittify the platform.

$240/yr is too much for simple hosting- a small artist can get that for free these days, especially if they don't need DRM. For the price you'd expect promotion and discovery.

It's not just the web hosting it's the whole trusted vendor you already have an account with.

Re: About half of Bandcamp employees have been laid off

#50

Post by gizmo »

amrocha wrote: post #44
wutwutwat wrote: post #25

Bandcamp is an odd site. It's existed for a very long time and is simple (or was when I last used it a couple years ago) in terms of application requirements. Basically what I'm saying is it feels very much like a rails app you could build in a weekend. Direct upload mastered files to s3 from the artists, activejob to convert to various formats and throw back to s3 via activestorage, subdomain model scoping for artis…

Here's a hypothetical scenario: - You're running the successor to Bandcamp - You're making good money, employ a couple staff - Epic comes to you offering millions to buy your business The rational choice is to sell. Would you choose the stress of running a sustainable business over the payout? I know I wouldn't. There's no indication afaik that Bandcamp was in financial trouble before they got acquired. This is inevi…

Cheaters think everybody cheats when given the opportunity. Thieves believe only fear of the law is what keeps the masses in line. Liars believe lying is normal and that they’re only embellishing anyway and really it’s for the greater good and also pragmatic and necessary to succeed.

There are many people who would not f their users and employees over when given the opportunity. Be like that.

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