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Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

variety.com

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Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#161

Post by stemlord »

samirsd wrote: post #135
indigochill wrote: post #46

Well, crap. Bandcamp was the perfect place for hosting my music. Hopefully Itch starts hosting music if they haven't already. I'd switch immediately. Are there any other good places to host low-budget indie music? Soundcloud doesn't count because I get at least one spammer interacting with my tracks every single time I upload something. It's got to the point that I've started only uploading things secretly and sharin…

https://mixtape.ai big new release coming this month with artist-side album drafting and merch features

Release your app for android and I'll try it out if it's free

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#162

Post by andai »

Apocryphon wrote: post #160
zippergz wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Nothing will change in the short term" is the story of every acquisition, almost all of which end up with major changes for the worse at some point. (So yes, I agree with you.)

And yet so many modern day startups have no viable exit strategy beyond acquisition- what does that say about the state of the industry, and of founders' commitments towards building a sustainable product?

Doesn't exiting necessarily imply a change in leadership?

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#163

Post by Apocryphon »

fundamental wrote: post #93
HellDunkel wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I too would have prefered seeing bandcamp stay independent but they were a privately owned company so that would have required a huge amount of idealism (which eventually wanes) or ambitions to compete with spotify. You can‘t always get what you want.

Personally I don't buy that line of argument. The endgame for a business is not a binary choice between acquisition or taking over the entire market.

> The endgame for a business is not a binary choice between acquisition or taking over the entire market.

That's been the state of tech ever since Web 2.0 or so.

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#164

Post by Apocryphon »

andai wrote: post #162
Apocryphon wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet so many modern day startups have no viable exit strategy beyond acquisition- what does that say about the state of the industry, and of founders' commitments towards building a sustainable product?

Doesn't exiting necessarily imply a change in leadership?

IPOs are the alternative form of exit and they certainly don't.

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#165

Post by finder83 »

stu2b50 wrote: post #65
paxys wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Motivation for founders is a lot easier to understand than that of the acquiring company. What on earth is Epic going to do with Bandcamp?

Create a market for music licensing that Unreal engine developers can use?

This is my guess as well. Pretty much every Epic acquisition is for Unreal.

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#166

Post by marrone12 »

noyesno wrote: post #50
siver_john wrote: post #22

This feels like a major blow, as someone who just semi recently (probably around pandemic start) started getting into purchasing flac music from indie artists, Bandcamp was a great source of music. I understand nothing will change in the short term, but long term I am very concerned. Especially as streaming becomes more dominant and companies are less willing to provide flac based music and physical discs (where I ca…

Qobuz offers both streamed music and flac purchases from their store.

Qobuz is the best

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#167

Post by dec0dedab0de »

I haven't been in an active band for over a decade, but back when I was bandcamp was the only way we ever got money online. We had it set to optional to pay, and we would randomly get $5-30 from people around the world. It wasn't much, but it always felt nice.

I also like the way they handled payments to artists, I'm not sure if they still do it this way, but back then your first 9 payments would go directly to your paypal, and the 10th would go to theirs. And they would balance it out to keep it where they only took %10.

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#168

Post by BaseballPhysics »

Apocryphon wrote: post #160
zippergz wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Nothing will change in the short term" is the story of every acquisition, almost all of which end up with major changes for the worse at some point. (So yes, I agree with you.)

And yet so many modern day startups have no viable exit strategy beyond acquisition- what does that say about the state of the industry, and of founders' commitments towards building a sustainable product?

> And yet so many modern day startups have no viable exit strategy beyond acquisition

Bandcamp was already profitable and has been for years. The pandemic dramatically increased their sales. They were doing fine.

Why did they need an exit?

That is the real flaw of SV thinking: that simply being a profitable, going concern is somehow inadequate. The result is monopoly accretion as small companies are repeatedly swallowed up by bigger ones.

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