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Forget spaceships; I just want my music

jeffgeerling.com

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Re: Forget spaceships; I just want my music

#21

Post by bitwize »

dirtybirdnj wrote: post #16
spicyusername wrote: post #6

It seems that we've entered the rent-seeking phase of corporate capitalism. Why spend any extra time, money, or energy making new products or services when you can instead make more money doing nothing but using your outsized political and economic power to coerce and extort consumers instead. At this point it's impossible to see how any new merger or acquisition isn't just another step in the wrong direction, handin…

> At what point is a company too large to effectively serve the public interest? I use the term "maxium tribe size" to describe the human capability (or incapability) of extending compassion and understanding to a group. Companies don't fail. People fail within companies. People fail other people and hide behind "limited liability" and the sham that is corporate personhood. Every person has a different MaxT. You may…

The sociologist's term for this is Dunbar's number: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar's_number

It's about ~150 with some variance between individuals.

Re: Forget spaceships; I just want my music

#23

Post by chimeracoder »

Semaphor wrote: post #3

At least so far, Bandcamp has not changed after the sale (neither sale). You can still buy music, and try it out for multiple album streams before buying (unless the artist or label disable it, which is rare), and download as FLAC. Granted, not always useful if what you want is from major labels, but still, keep in mind that there are options.

> At least so far, Bandcamp has not changed after the sale (neither sale)

The second sale was just a couple months ago, and while you can still buy music and download it, it's not true that "nothing has changed" since then. There have been quite a lot of changes, just not on that one front. And it's only been two months, so it's way too early to conclude that Songtradr won't gut it more thoroughly.

Not much changed during the time Epic owned Bandcamp, sure, but that's because Epic only bought it in order to gain standing for their lawsuits with Apple. It didn't fit into their business strategy otherwise, so they had no need to mess with it - they literally just needed it to be a legal subsidiary as a pawn for an unrelated legal battle. The same is not true with Songtradr, which has its own motives and objectives that relate to Bandcamp's actual operations and business.

Re: Forget spaceships; I just want my music

#24

Post by xerox13ster »

Syonyk wrote: post #4
Semaphor wrote: post #3

At least so far, Bandcamp has not changed after the sale (neither sale). You can still buy music, and try it out for multiple album streams before buying (unless the artist or label disable it, which is rare), and download as FLAC. Granted, not always useful if what you want is from major labels, but still, keep in mind that there are options.

Wasn't there some recent article about how Bandcamp got acquired by a competitor and is more or less being left to rot on the vine? I agree, the FLAC downloads are a major perk of it, and I'll happily buy music there. But I wouldn't trust it to be around long term at this point. It's too consumer-friendly to exist long term in this modern world we live in. :(

Bought by EPIC, conducted layoffs to crush unionization attempts.

Re: Forget spaceships; I just want my music

#25

Post by deanCommie »

taylodl wrote: post #17
Syonyk wrote: post #2

Yup. Sound right. The time spent re-ripping my CD collection to FLAC, my DVD collection to MKV, etc, has been well spent. I can rapidly enough transcode from that to "Whatever I happen to need for where I'm listening to it," and our vehicles have quite the range of local music and audiobook content for road trips that doesn't rely on streaming anything. You can get CDs for (usually) very little on eBay, same for DVDs…

I remain optimistic that we're in the starting phases of a rejection of the online [handwaves at everything digital consumer tech], and it's going to be aided greatly by stuff exactly like this. Profits and corporate pissing matches over "actually doing something people want to pay money for." Your optimism is unfounded. Gen Z thinks it's cool to own an album or two, but they're not building collections. Scrap bookin…

Gen Z is young, have no money, have no optimism for the future, are completely un-technical when it comes to computers, but are EXTREMELY technical when it comes to understanding apps, social media, and weird frustrations like this one.

It remains to be seen once they enter the job market, and despite the cultural perspective inevitably many do succeed, and start making money.

I wouldn't be surprised if they absolutely do focus more on physical media. They are rejecting Instagram look-obsessive culture, and look fondly at what we did in the 2000s when every Party meant a 50-photo Facebook Photo dump, 49 of which would never be "good enough" to make it to Instagram these days.

Re: Forget spaceships; I just want my music

#26

Post by toast0 »

Syonyk wrote: post #19
taylodl wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remain optimistic that we're in the starting phases of a rejection of the online [handwaves at everything digital consumer tech], and it's going to be aided greatly by stuff exactly like this. Profits and corporate pissing matches over "actually doing something people want to pay money for." Your optimism is unfounded. Gen Z thinks it's cool to own an album or two, but they're not building collections. Scrap bookin…

They're physical things, interacted in the physical world, without any way for the companies involved to claw back the content, or to data-mine the scrapbook, your albums, etc, for listening data and such (though I imagine a smart TV with a mic will try). That's a good direction to see movement in. They're not doing "online scrapbooks" or something. And given the long standing records of "What you said 15 years ago o…

> They're physical things, interacted in the physical world, without any way for the companies involved to claw back the content

Oh, there's ways. In the 90s, there was a rental scheme with sealed discs that would degrade in air to become unusable within a week. (At least that was upfront, if wasteful). I've had one at least CD rot from the inside, and it's a major issue for LaserDiscs. Careful material science could make this the norm.

Re: Forget spaceships; I just want my music

#28

Post by Semaphor »

chimeracoder wrote: post #23
Semaphor wrote: post #3

At least so far, Bandcamp has not changed after the sale (neither sale). You can still buy music, and try it out for multiple album streams before buying (unless the artist or label disable it, which is rare), and download as FLAC. Granted, not always useful if what you want is from major labels, but still, keep in mind that there are options.

> At least so far, Bandcamp has not changed after the sale (neither sale) The second sale was just a couple months ago, and while you can still buy music and download it, it's not true that "nothing has changed" since then. There have been quite a lot of changes, just not on that one front. And it's only been two months, so it's way too early to conclude that Songtradr won't gut it more thoroughly. Not much changed d…

I know. Still don't expect any changes. Nothing has changed for any part of Bandcamp I cared about.

Re: Forget spaceships; I just want my music

#29

Post by whywhywhywhy »

> as Sony just decided to yoink over a thousand seasons—that's right, seasons, not episodes—of Discovery shows from the PlayStation Store

Didn't realize Sony owned Discovery, oh wait they don't. So it's actually Discovery who's licensing caused Sony to be legally obligated to remove the shows.

Sucks if you bought it but yeah just like the games in your Steam library you never actually owned it, you merely licensed it.

Re: Forget spaceships; I just want my music

#30

Post by RecycledEle »

The Chinese system of central libraries is better than copyright.

Imagine having every book ever written, for free, all your life.

Imagine authors and inventors being compensated twice what they are usually paid in the USA, while the corporate lawyers panhandle.

I know the lawyers would end up as party higher-ups still screwing us, but I can dream.

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