so, i think that bandcamp is providing the closest thing to a proper business model for independent artists in the internet era. it's not perfect, but it's vastly superior to what something like spotify is offering. those streaming sites are hypercapitalism, in the sense that they're bankrolling a bourgeoisie and giving the artists the finger. you shouldn't support that shit.
but in order for something more artist-friendly like bandcamp to exist, it has to be supported. i'm on the receiving end, and it's far from paying my bills, but i feel i should be supporting it, as well. so, i'm going to be investing a few dollars a month of money i'm making as profit to try and keep it spinning.
this is also going to function as a component of my review presence by drawing attention to independent artists that i think are doing something that's worth paying for. i do quite a bit of scouring and am incredibly selective. so, this page is going to be somewhat of an elite list of totally obscure music in a few months :)
https://bandcamp.com/deathtokoalas
regarding the streaming sites, i'd hazard a guess that google play will drive the others to irrelevancy within a few years because they're paying out upwards of a thousand times as much. i generated 20,000 hits at youtube over 2014. i've turned the ads off because it's not worth distracting people for fractions of a cent; maybe they might follow the ad instead of listening to the song, and then what's the point? but it would be about $20 on that 20,000 hits. yeah. ad revenue for youtube users is basically nothing.
spotify is even less than youtube ad revenue. i'd get pennies on 20,000 hits. google play is about 5 cents a stream - hundreds of times as much. now, i don't know what that means. 50% of a stream? just clicking play? it's about $1000 if any old hit counts. even if half of the hits count, it's worth signing up for.
but, like i say, i think this is a tactic and not sustainable in the long run. and, i don't see a way to drive traffic. rather than my 20,000 youtube hits as a baseline, it's more reasonable to look at my 2500 partial or complete bandcamp streams, which is more like $100. worth paying the signup fee for? not clear, really.
bandcamp maintains the buy-the-fucking-record-if-you-want-to-listen-to-it idea, which i'll admit i'm just kind of attached to. i do all these singles. but i make records, not singles. i'm willing to bend some ways as the technology changes, but in the end i have no intention or desire to modify the nature of the product. the marketing or distribution, sure. but not the thing itself. it's almost more that the streaming sites are borderline useless to me, other than as a way to convert the process of shopping for music into a profit making experience. which is weird.
i mean, i look at youtube as advertising. i'd look at google play as advertising as well. it's not the end purchase point; it can't be. you can talk about models and technology all you want, it can't be the final transaction. so, should i make money by advertising? it's a weird idea. and, the consumer ends up paying to access advertising, which is just as fucked. people think it's a great deal: $10/month for a huge library. but, it can't be the end transaction. so, it's more like $10/month to get access to the store to shop. like a costco type model...
even at five cents a stream, there's essentially no way to live off of this. so, everybody is getting ripped off except the people hosting the site. i just don't see where this goes, unless they plan to shut down youtube altogether....
....in which case, the torrents get even more traffic.
it has to be something like bandcamp, which lets you listen to it as a stream all you want but charges when you want to download it or add it to a library. nothing else is going to get artist support, or be able to maintain independent music.
if you search around online, the best argument anybody has for signing up to spotify is "exposure". but nobody explains what this means. personally, i haven't a clue how signing up to a library with millions of songs is going to increase exposure. rather, it seems like a good way to get your tunes lost. i mean, the chances of some algorithm throwing me up seem pretty remote. the only way to get people to hear things is to market it. i need to give people links. where it's hosted is not important. so, it's just another hosting site, as far as i'm concerned....just one with a really bad payout.
