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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

#121

Post by Pxtl »

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 The UI on BandCamp has been vastly outdated for ages now, it was very hard to navigate and find new music by genre.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…

See, for me I like that Bandcamp is just a store. That I see an artist I like on social media, click their bandcamp link, and if I like their music I buy it. I don't use its recommendation features, and the only social feature I use is the ability to follow an artist and thus get news-bulletins about their work.

Once you get to an artist's page, the UI is simple and clean and Just Works. I can see their releases, buy and download them easily. That's what I want when shopping.

Imho, Bandcamp shouldn't even offer that kind of $20 "promotion subscription" thing you mention. Just sell music, take the cut, and be done with it.

Honestly my only real UI complaint about Bandcamp is that artists often move between labels and collabs and the label runs the bandcamp page so their music is mixed in with all their labelmates. That's where I find it gets very confusing. Like most of Lauren Bousfield's albums are at

https://laurenbousfieldanyev3r.bandcamp.com/

except her latest album which is here:

https://orangemilkrecords.bandcamp.com/album/salesforce

and is not linked from her personal page at all. Another album (Palimpsest) is linked from her personal page, but if you click on the artist of that one it takes you to a different label (https://deathbombarc.bandcamp.com/).

So obviously something is horribly wrong with navigation in how it handles labels and the like.

Re: About half of Bandcamp employees have been laid off

#122

Post by chunk_waffle »

callalex wrote: post #118
chunk_waffle wrote: post #110

Anyone have some good alternatives for downloading loseless and DRM free music from artists? For Japanese artist I use ototoy.jp but that's a small subset of my library. Guess I better get what's on my wish list while I can!

The iTunes Store never went away and fits your description.

I was under the impression (perhaps mistaken) that music you purchased in iTunes had to stay in iTunes. Can I take my files where I please or do they have to reside in the Apple walled garden?

Re: About half of Bandcamp employees have been laid off

#123

Post by diggan »

callalex wrote: post #118
chunk_waffle wrote: post #110

Anyone have some good alternatives for downloading loseless and DRM free music from artists? For Japanese artist I use ototoy.jp but that's a small subset of my library. Guess I better get what's on my wish list while I can!

The iTunes Store never went away and fits your description.

How much of my money goes to the artists when I purchase with iTunes Store? If I recall correctly, Bandcamp gives ~80% usually to the artists, except on Bandcamp Fridays when they give ~90% to the artists (waiving their own fee).

Re: About half of Bandcamp employees have been laid off

#125

Post by Pxtl »

Night_Thastus wrote: post #53

I'm really bummed. I love Bandcamp. It's the only place I can buy music FROM THE MUSICIAN with very little overhead, and download a high-quality lossless track. Amazon only lets me buy crap-quality MP3s. Apple is opaque about it, putting either lossy AAC or lossless ALAC in the same M4A containers. >:( The only good alternative is Qobuz, which is frustrating to use and charges absolutely massive overhead. But unfortu…

There's also 7digital.... which is now, also owned by Songtradr. Or Amazon, which doesn't sell music in my country.

Or Apple. Which seems to resent even still running the itunes music store, they don't even have a web front for it.

Re: About half of Bandcamp employees have been laid off

#126

Post by code_runner »

reactordev wrote: post #78
nomel wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly why I have Spotify rather than bandcamp. It finds music I like, regardless of musician effort. I found more new musicians in the first year of Spotify than decades before. It’s a loss for everyone if good music goes unheard.

It’s a loss to musicians to have a monopoly like Spotify (who likes to recreate popular songs with their own artists and label) be the gatekeeper to what is good music. From a service perspective, it’s great. I have the worlds music at my fingertips. From a music perspective it’s horrible. I have one company dictating streaming payments and terms on an entire industry and you’re f&$ked if you don’t play nice. Ask Tay…

can you follow up on the recreating popular songs and how spotify wronged taylor swift?

Re: About half of Bandcamp employees have been laid off

#127

Post by comprev »

willsmith72 wrote: post #89
amrocha wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's not at all as simple as a "rational choice". It completely depends on your objective. Why did you start the business in the first place? If it was to make a few mill and never have to work again, sure, sell. If you wanted to build something bigger than yourself, work with great people, feel accomplished, then why sell? How is that few mill going to get you those things? A lot of founders regret their first sale…

To back this view up there are plenty of artists who openly admit they "break even" when they've sold a 300-batch of records.

The operating costs include buying instruments/software/hardware, using a mastering service and pressing vinyl - all of which are not cheap.

They do it for the love of producing music - and watching their work sell out within _minutes_ of being released... which in turn inspires them to make another record (or ten haha!)

Re: About half of Bandcamp employees have been laid off

#128

Post by callalex »

chunk_waffle wrote: post #122
callalex wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The iTunes Store never went away and fits your description.

I was under the impression (perhaps mistaken) that music you purchased in iTunes had to stay in iTunes. Can I take my files where I please or do they have to reside in the Apple walled garden?

iTunes purchases have been DRM free since the mid 2000s. Most, but not all are also available in Apple Lossless format, which means you can convert them to whatever format you prefer without any quality concerns.

Re: About half of Bandcamp employees have been laid off

#130

Post by callalex »

diggan wrote: post #123
callalex wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The iTunes Store never went away and fits your description.

How much of my money goes to the artists when I purchase with iTunes Store? If I recall correctly, Bandcamp gives ~80% usually to the artists, except on Bandcamp Fridays when they give ~90% to the artists (waiving their own fee).

I don’t think it’s a fixed amount, it’s negotiated and not public information.
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