Bandcamp and Soundcloud are not social enterprises, and yet many social music makers and lovers use them regularly. How should we navigate this situation? Do we encourage music lovers discussion and collaboration about these platforms?
Also, are there other similar types of platforms in the boundary between social & fair, and plain corporate and commercial?
Beatstars comes to mindā¦
As businesses, they are borderline ethical ā until they arenāt. If we take the long view, of constructing a post-capitalism world, I think we should not only condemn such things that they do obviously wrong, but also look beyond the things theyāre doing right.
Suppose we generalize until weāre talking about distributing streams of data to be aesthetically experienced.
Bandcamp exists in a local optimum of doing that for music in a minimally annoying way. They do, at least, provide downloads.
The promise of the Internet was to make the middleman unnecessary for this distribution; it ended up coalescing into centralized silos and walled gardens not by some technological predetermination, but rather by political work on the part of surveillance capitalists. Bandcamp is among the more comfortable silos, but itās still a silo. Can we commodify them?
Soundcloudā¦ same thing, and how do they even make their money? Iāve always considered them one of the more unassuming platforms. Decade ago we used them for a project that grew out of the free upload space, so we bought a pro subscription, and considered that fair. Now, I donāt visit there that often, and I sure donāt like that they make my browser do this:
(Also wondering whether this thread might not more rightfully belong in General?)
I donāt mind Bandcamp so much (at least until they begin massive corporate shenanigans). Iām not a fan of Soundcloud at allā¦particularly their huge bot problem and their double dipping creators to make them pay for more storage/features, then also requiring them to pay again for high quality streaming audio.
Iām really on board with the work that Bandwagon.fm is doing and (I havenāt added it to the Projects section yet) Iām working on a music sharing platform similar to Soundcloud, but with out the algorithm deciding who gets heard, bots, and shady subscription practices. Iām planning to share as soon as Iām fully functional and would love some folks around here to get in and test drive it.
Bandcamp still manages to let us keep 85% of what we make, so I donāt see them as a problem necessarily. Iām just hoping they donāt get in bed with streaming services anytime soon.
As businesses, they are borderline ethical ā until they arenāt.
This is basically my rule of thumb with most SAAS that isnāt FOSS. The problem is always that utility (meaning social reach) leads us to platforms that arenāt positive for us or the wider community.
My thing with bandcamp - I have one, I donāt use it much. Itās a placeholder until I fix up my website (which is behind the cloud of ADHD projects). I really dislike it as a means of discovering music. Some of that is due to not using it enough - but I find that I have to refresh a lot and itās a lot less convenient than youtube (which is several orders of magnitude worse).
A point from Iotar (who Iāve invited to join here, donāt think he has yet) is that a lot of times DIY creates entrepreneurs rather than artists and I think thatās true of bandcamp. Iām withering of platforms that repeat existing paradigms but purport to do so in a way thatās kinder. It may be that Twitter started off as an ostensibly more equitable version of fb but we know where that ended (which is to say both platforms are appalling, donāt mistake me for an fb apologist). What I mean really is that the politics are baked into the architecture. Which, given that this is fedi/FOSS oriented, is very much playing to the crowd on my part.
On a more personal level (still) - Iāve had a soundcloud for over a decade, Iāve had bandcamp for a few years. Iāve got very little interest and precisely no gigs from them. I donāt really know why theyāre there and what theyāre doing for me. In about 6 months of uploading to tiktok Iāve gotten more interest and a load more people listening - hugely transient and not sustainable if I was a professional but on the level of āpeople have been exposed to my musicā, itās been a lot less depressing, even while the overwhelming majority of those people have stopped listening in seconds.
I guess Iām pushing myself to a position where the ādefinitely bastardsā big guns I use (tiktok, youtube) are personally more gratifying than the āpotentially and probably bastardsā of soundcloud and bandcamp. Which is uncomfortable.
To me, Bandcamp is currently the āleast badā of the corporate music platforms. Ever since they got bought by Epic, Iām watching for signs of enshittification and Iām looking for other places to take my music to. But to date, theyāre still a source of the occasional euro, and from the listener side, I appreciate that they let me buy DRM-free, high-quality audio files that I can listen to offline.
Personally and purely subjectively, I donāt like SoundCloud as much, and while I occasionally put some of my music there, I donāt use it enough to have an informed opinion.
So what can I add to the discussion here? Two points come to mind: