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Subvert – Collectively owned music marketplace

subvert.fm

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Re: Subvert – Collectively owned music marketplace

#51

Post by jancsika »

freedomben wrote: post #20

I think this is great, but I do hope thought is being put into solving the hardest problem of all IMHO: Music Discovery I have bought a lot on Bandcamp, but would have bought 10x more if I could just find stuff I liked. The existing system makes discovery nearly impossible unless you happen to like the stuff being mainly bought and curated or are in a lucky genre. Discoverability is especially hard because 99% of the…

> As much as I love good art (and I do), most art is not good art.

Are you sure you're talking about "good art" and not merely "professionally mixed and mastered recordings?"

Re: Subvert – Collectively owned music marketplace

#52

Post by cloudfudge »

mmooss wrote: post #12

It's a great start. Co-ops and non-profits can also be subverted and taken over. I hope you look ahead and plan very carefully. For example, according to an (unverified) story someone told me, a vendor to US east coast food cooperatives now controls many of them; they get their person in, pass bylaws empowering them and disempowering the board (the board usually lacking sophistication), and have deeper pockets for an…

For the record, I'm not affiliated with Subvert and in reading the docs I find their arguments about the "problem" with Bandcamp extremely weak/hypothetical and stated over and over again without any evidence. I am skeptical that they understand the economics of running a music retail site and think they might find that the cut Bandcamp takes is actually pretty fair for the value bands get. And I also don't really get how they plan to make this "collective ownership" actually work for real, but I also got really exhausted reading the doc and gave up, so maybe it's buried in there. The real reason I posted it here was hoping the HN hive mind would dissect and critique the actual plan for me. :)

Re: Subvert – Collectively owned music marketplace

#53

Post by anticorporate »

mmooss wrote: post #12

It's a great start. Co-ops and non-profits can also be subverted and taken over. I hope you look ahead and plan very carefully. For example, according to an (unverified) story someone told me, a vendor to US east coast food cooperatives now controls many of them; they get their person in, pass bylaws empowering them and disempowering the board (the board usually lacking sophistication), and have deeper pockets for an…

> For example, according to an (unverified) story someone told me, a vendor to US east coast food cooperatives now controls many of them; they get their person in, pass bylaws empowering them and disempowering the board (the board usually lacking sophistication), and have deeper pockets for any legal struggle than any co-op member does.

For anyone interested in learning more, this is a reference to the National Cooperative Grocers and the role of UNFI (a primary distributor for many food coops) and CDS (a cooperative grocery consulting firm). I've been pretty involved in my local grocery cooperative's governance over the past two decades. From my vantage point, there's some truth to this, but also some exaggeration (or more accurately, the pinning of other grievances, which themselves might be legitimate, on something that might not actually be related).

I don't endorse or necessarily agree with the views expressed on these two websites, but they might help give some background:

https://organizing.work/2019/04/why-do-coops-hate-unions/

http://web.archive.org/web/20210213141044/http://www.takebac...

Re: Subvert – Collectively owned music marketplace

#54

Post by PoignardAzur »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #28
mmooss wrote: post #12

It's a great start. Co-ops and non-profits can also be subverted and taken over. I hope you look ahead and plan very carefully. For example, according to an (unverified) story someone told me, a vendor to US east coast food cooperatives now controls many of them; they get their person in, pass bylaws empowering them and disempowering the board (the board usually lacking sophistication), and have deeper pockets for an…

The FAQ has: > Is this a crypto thing? >> No. I realize that crypto is a bad word for some people, but I think that the above answer has a corollary: > Does it have a single point of control that will attract corruption if enough of us start using it? >> Yes Certainly plenty of poorly designed crypto things also have that point of control, but a well designed crypto thing at least has a shot at resilience.

> Does it have a single point of control that will attract corruption if enough of us start using it?

By opposition to crypto, which attracts distributed corruption when enough people use the project?

I'm being glib, but complaining that a project not using crypto makes it inherently unsafe is pretty rich.

Re: Subvert – Collectively owned music marketplace

#55

Post by zepton »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #28
mmooss wrote: post #12

It's a great start. Co-ops and non-profits can also be subverted and taken over. I hope you look ahead and plan very carefully. For example, according to an (unverified) story someone told me, a vendor to US east coast food cooperatives now controls many of them; they get their person in, pass bylaws empowering them and disempowering the board (the board usually lacking sophistication), and have deeper pockets for an…

The FAQ has: > Is this a crypto thing? >> No. I realize that crypto is a bad word for some people, but I think that the above answer has a corollary: > Does it have a single point of control that will attract corruption if enough of us start using it? >> Yes Certainly plenty of poorly designed crypto things also have that point of control, but a well designed crypto thing at least has a shot at resilience.

Musicians want to accept credit card payments (you lose a lot of potential sales if you only take crypto), which requires a central party to handle payment processing.

Re: Subvert – Collectively owned music marketplace

#56

Post by joemi »

n-exploit wrote: post #7
jsheard wrote: post #6

How is Bandcamp doing nowadays? I know the backstory of it being bought by Epic, then Epic realizing they have no use for a music store and selling it off to Songtradr who immediately gutted it by firing half of the staff, but I don't use it enough to know if enshittification has set in yet.

This sounds like enshittification itself, in its own way. Rotating hands to the highest bidder.

How in the world is it enshittification if there's no noticeable change to users? Nothing got shittier, so doesn't that by definition mean it's not enshittification?

Re: Subvert – Collectively owned music marketplace

#57

Post by littlestymaar »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #28
mmooss wrote: post #12

It's a great start. Co-ops and non-profits can also be subverted and taken over. I hope you look ahead and plan very carefully. For example, according to an (unverified) story someone told me, a vendor to US east coast food cooperatives now controls many of them; they get their person in, pass bylaws empowering them and disempowering the board (the board usually lacking sophistication), and have deeper pockets for an…

The FAQ has: > Is this a crypto thing? >> No. I realize that crypto is a bad word for some people, but I think that the above answer has a corollary: > Does it have a single point of control that will attract corruption if enough of us start using it? >> Yes Certainly plenty of poorly designed crypto things also have that point of control, but a well designed crypto thing at least has a shot at resilience.

> Certainly plenty of poorly designed crypto things also have that point of control,

They all have. They just claim they can work against social dynamics with technology but that's a fool errand.

Re: Subvert – Collectively owned music marketplace

#58

Post by jimbokun »

mmooss wrote: post #12

It's a great start. Co-ops and non-profits can also be subverted and taken over. I hope you look ahead and plan very carefully. For example, according to an (unverified) story someone told me, a vendor to US east coast food cooperatives now controls many of them; they get their person in, pass bylaws empowering them and disempowering the board (the board usually lacking sophistication), and have deeper pockets for an…

Sounds like the key for this entire venture succeeding is the quality of their legal counsel.

Re: Subvert – Collectively owned music marketplace

#59

Post by n-exploit »

mmooss wrote: post #12

It's a great start. Co-ops and non-profits can also be subverted and taken over. I hope you look ahead and plan very carefully. For example, according to an (unverified) story someone told me, a vendor to US east coast food cooperatives now controls many of them; they get their person in, pass bylaws empowering them and disempowering the board (the board usually lacking sophistication), and have deeper pockets for an…

The public document - PLAN FOR THE ARTIST-OWNED INTERNET - zine subvert published yesterday has quite a bit of detail on the complexities and possibilities in the governance and benefit of the co-op. The team supposedly includes lawyers and economists.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1znV0Q8_jjxFTiKeT_FETTZieiXl...

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