About half of Bandcamp employees have been laid off • Hacker News Board

Re: About half of Bandcamp employees have been laid off

#381

Post by JohnFen » Tue, Oct 17, 2023, 1:30 AM UTC

pavel_lishin wrote: post #353

avitous wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I too loved Bandcamp for its sane approach to acquiring new music; unlike "most people" I refuse to use the streaming-only services, and insist upon buying albums and listening to exactly those selections I choose (and I prefer to listen to albums in their entirety, even today). Perhaps I'm just old and set in my ways, but choices made by others, especially algorithmically generated "options maximizing my engagement"…

I also refuse to use streaming services, and prefer to curate my own music - but for me, it's less about algorithmic suggestions, and more about actually owning the things I've paid for. A streaming service or an artist can pull music from a service (see Neil Young), but they ain't going to be reaching into my hard drives and pulling the mp3s out of it.

This is me as well. Streaming services don't serve my needs at all.

I find algorithmic suggestions pretty much useless, but they're easy to ignore so don't really enter into it.

Re: About half of Bandcamp employees have been laid off

#382

Post by aendruk » Tue, Oct 17, 2023, 1:30 AM UTC

redwall_hp wrote: post #360

aendruk wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d been wondering this myself and now suspect I’ve written off Apple too soon. If I buy music from Apple on my iPhone it’s not trapped on Apple devices? When I first switched to iOS I didn’t see any way to play my music in Apple’s music player and I assumed the door was closed both directions.

I think you still need iTunes on your computer for it. You have to import your music into your iTunes library and sync your phone with a computer. Purchases, similarly, can be redownloaded on the computer. They're all DRM-free AAC, since the early 2000s. I've mostly used Spotify in the past decade, but it seems to all work the way it always has. They just shove Apple Music (not the same as iTunes) in your face when y…

Ah, too bad. Apple is so frustratingly close.

Re: About half of Bandcamp employees have been laid off

#383

Post by derefr » Tue, Oct 17, 2023, 1:34 AM UTC

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #182

derefr wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bandcamp is (was?) to music as Flickr is to photography. It's a portfolio site, that doubles as a means to buy things from that portfolio. It's the thing an artist's social media pages link to to say "here's my body of work for you to browse through." Where browsing through that portfolio — listening to 30-second previews of songs, etc — doesn't require signing up for any service, but is just a regular part of the pu…

Not 30 second previews of songs, in general: the whole song, often many times over. Plus multiple download formats, including losslessly compressed formats such as FLAC. Plus the best return to the musician of any similar platform.

I'm talking about what you get without having to sign in. Even with free albums, IIRC you can't fully preview the song without "buying" it, which means signing in first. The signed-in experience is mostly akin to the signed-in experience of the iTunes Store. It's what you get when not signed in that's unique.

Re: About half of Bandcamp employees have been laid off

#384

Post by ascagnel_ » Tue, Oct 17, 2023, 1:35 AM UTC

presbyterian wrote: post #311

fsckboy wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

can one stream a mix of music sourced elsewhere and bandcamp music? If people have to keep switching apps, I think that's going to limit the appeal to people who are a bit more serious/intentional about every "listen". There's a lot of those, but it's still a minority.

Any time I download music from Bandcamp, I drag it into Apple Music on my Mac and it syncs to all of my devices, sitting in my library like any other album. It’s actually one of the reasons I use Apple Music over Spotify, the process to do this in Spotify is much more convoluted.

Spotify’s process is that the files need to be locally accessible from any computer playing the music, or they must be synced manually to the mobile app.

Lack of a real library is why I ditched Spotify for Rdio years and years ago, and why I switched to Apple Music when that became a thing. And I still run a Plex server, partially for the PlexAmp player.

Re: About half of Bandcamp employees have been laid off

#385

Post by nativeit » Tue, Oct 17, 2023, 1:35 AM UTC

alexalx666 wrote: post #307

alisson_dover wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you used Bandcamp? It's a way larger feature set than an iOS app for picture sharing.

Yes I used it, it looks like a website from 2004, clearly their core competencies can not be about building their own file upload, payment etc. but creating Customer Friendly Sexy Branded landing, working with labels etc. which they failed to do with 100 ppl

Ah yes, the halcyon days of 2004, when websites were all…minimalist?

Bandcamp has been one of the most functional and user-centered designs on the web for a long time now. They asked for far less commission on sales, and they provided options for downloading music in FLAC and even WAV formats, and were well ahead of the curve with “pay what you can” pricing. I have been a musician all of my life. I used Bandcamp exclusively to distribute my music online, and every musician I have ever known prefers it over every other option—by wide margins. Part of what we liked was how little it engaged in feature-creep and bloat.

Re: About half of Bandcamp employees have been laid off

#386

Post by sdenton4 » Tue, Oct 17, 2023, 1:39 AM UTC

initplus wrote: post #288

Kye wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"By continuing to use Bandcamp, you agree..." What's an artist who depends on the platform to do?

If Bandcamp were to try such a move they would destroy the value of their business overnight. Retroactively changing the agreement with your customers about their IP is the best way to permanently destroy trust.

"Pray we do not alter it further..."

I guess that only works for Darth Vader.

Re: About half of Bandcamp employees have been laid off

#387

Post by JohnFen » Tue, Oct 17, 2023, 1:41 AM UTC

mcsniff wrote: post #239

JohnFen wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I buy music from Spotify? As in, be able to download a non-proprietary, lossless encoding of the music? If not, Spotify is worthless to me.

If you re-frame Spotify as a way to discover music, it's not worthless. Feel free to use Spotify to find artists and give them money however you want. Also, nobody is stopping you from spending your time finding new music and giving money as directly as possible to the artist. Spotify can be seen as a way to increase your exposure to new music, and for that it might be worth the $XX/month to many people, the ability…

> If you re-frame Spotify as a way to discover music, it's not worthless.

It is to me, though. I don't need another way to discover music. I have that well-covered.

And by "buy music", I wasn't referring to a way to pay artists (that would be a followup question if I didn't already know that part). I mean, can I download the music in a high-quality, open-standard, format?

I thought Spotify only did streaming, and I am not interested in a streaming service.

Re: About half of Bandcamp employees have been laid off

#388

Post by avitous » Tue, Oct 17, 2023, 1:42 AM UTC

Alupis wrote: post #358

avitous wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I too loved Bandcamp for its sane approach to acquiring new music; unlike "most people" I refuse to use the streaming-only services, and insist upon buying albums and listening to exactly those selections I choose (and I prefer to listen to albums in their entirety, even today). Perhaps I'm just old and set in my ways, but choices made by others, especially algorithmically generated "options maximizing my engagement"…

Just to offer a counterpoint - there's so many indie and small bands I've found while listening to Pandora. Most or all of which I would have never discovered otherwise. Sure, maybe they don't pay as much as me buying the CD would for the artist - but I likely would have never found them any other way. Now, they get something every time I listen to their songs. I would, however, enjoy much higher quality audio. Even…

I tried a couple streaming services a while back, and them rather annoying. I've discovered a lot of good new bands through Bandcamp, just reading about related bands in genres I like. The annoyances of the various streaming services just push me away, and yes, potentially to my own detriment in missing out of artists I might not discover any other way.

Re: About half of Bandcamp employees have been laid off

#389

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Oct 17, 2023, 1:45 AM UTC

iainctduncan wrote: post #139

Background, I work in diligence for software aquisitions. There are a lot of assumptions on this thread. I don't know the answers in this case (not sure if anyone does?) but I think it is naive to assume that Bandcamp was wise to be employing all these people. While acquisitions tanking a company with stupid decisions are super common, it's also super common for companies who are trying to look like they are growing…

[deleted]

Re: About half of Bandcamp employees have been laid off

#390

Post by avitous » Tue, Oct 17, 2023, 1:45 AM UTC

pavel_lishin wrote: post #353

avitous wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I too loved Bandcamp for its sane approach to acquiring new music; unlike "most people" I refuse to use the streaming-only services, and insist upon buying albums and listening to exactly those selections I choose (and I prefer to listen to albums in their entirety, even today). Perhaps I'm just old and set in my ways, but choices made by others, especially algorithmically generated "options maximizing my engagement"…

I also refuse to use streaming services, and prefer to curate my own music - but for me, it's less about algorithmic suggestions, and more about actually owning the things I've paid for. A streaming service or an artist can pull music from a service (see Neil Young), but they ain't going to be reaching into my hard drives and pulling the mp3s out of it.

Ownership is indeed the other reason I don't do streaming. I pay for a track or album, download it, and it's mine.

I do see this capability disappearing in coming years, however; especially with growing use of "AI" tools to, say, craft ever more complicated barriers to avoiding rent-seeking.