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It might sound weird to say this about the impact of a website, but Bandcamp really has transformed my musical interests and, as a result, my life. I have been able to cultivate & help support a small, shifting, virtual community of artists and listeners that I learned from over the past 13 years. So, it is very sad to hear about the recent sell-off, layoffs and plunder.
cc/ @bandcampunited
1/3
This post from @pettter has me wondering if there are any efforts yet to start to think about what a similar #coop run service might look like?
https://mastodon.acc.umu.se/@pettter/111249022267794376
It seems like Bandcamp is past the startup stage where it could #ExitToCommunity?
https://www.colorado.edu/lab/medlab/2020/08/31/exit-community-community-primer
As much as I personally align with decentralization, there does seem to be some value in a centralized platform for managing payments, storage and discovery for artists whose livelihood depends on trust.
2/3
If anyone has any leads for how to tap into, or start, a conversation about what a #coop run music platform like bandcamp could look like please let me know.
It seems like there must be a very large number of people who would be supportive of a cooperatively run AND FUN site like Bandcamp, that was self sustaining, supported artists, supported its workers, and had a clear governance model.
If it was open-source and could federate that would be great of course too. But first things first.
3/3
@edsu as there's at least three attempts - Resonate, Ampled and jam.coop - some who've been trying 5+ years - I wonder if the goal should be to develop/support open, interoperable and trustworthy infrastructure to allow 1000 new bandcamps & Patrons to emerge? Ie to be to Bandcamp what the Fediverse is to Twitter.. so musicians don't need to fear where they sign up as wherever they do, they can sell/stream/etc to anyone anywhere, and also easily migrate..
@edsu and if it isn't open source and it doesn't federate (ie build on FunkWhale/Castopod), then how is it different to the previous efforts?
More importantly, how does a musician, who wants to be making music not navigating platform politics, know the new effort won't go the same way as the others?
I can't find the link rn but there was a call from a group of musicians asking people to not start pitching the latest platform at them, that they don't want fads, they want a long term answer.
@nicol thanks for the reminder that this work has been ongoing and has been overshadowed by Bandcamp as it rose. Maybe this is a moment where artists can discover these alternatives and fans can follow them there? Have you seen a primer for artists who are looking to jump and need help navigating the choices?
I'm a software developer so I'm susceptible to the idea that it's a tooling problem. I do think tools matter, but maybe secondarily to governance and trust.
@nicol I forgot to say, if you can relocate that thread that would be awesome!
@edsu I will search on my desktop browser later.
I'd also be v happy to discuss this further. I've been thinking about decentralised/federatable indie media distribution /sustainability systems for a very long time. There *are* gaps in the tooling still, & while governance is key my gut tells me the DISCO model (federate not scale) is the best bet as it most closely approximates what indie music (labels/shops/venues) used to be like before the majors swallowed all, then Spotify swallowed them.
@edsu and just got an email from Ampled saying they will close at the end of the year : - (
But it reminded me I'd not followed up on this with the link from @radiofreefedi "we don't want artists to burnout on platform testing and jumping rather than be creating": https://musician.social/@radiofreefedi/111145880099548974