If you really care about them and they're listed on Bandcamp, it's pretty trivial to sign up for email announcements at an artist level, so you don't miss an opportunity to support them financially whenever they release new material.
Many big musicians don't even have bandcamp accounts, which (1) amazes me (2) implies that they make most of their money through other means, e.g. touring, private performances, etc.
[1] From their website: When you buy something on Bandcamp, 80-85% of your money goes to the artist, and we pay out daily. The remainder goes to payment processor fees and Bandcamp’s revenue share, which is 10-15% on digital items, and 10% on physical goods.
At a certain point, Taylor Swift and larger artists _do_ make a good chunk of change from their actual music sales, but it isn't a feasible strategy to rely on that for indie and DIY artists.
This model breaks down for people like me who are neither interested in merch nor in going to concerts. I just like the music.
My theory is if you want to see something tomorrow, the best insurance you have it is to make it profitable for the people doing it today, so giving my money to musicians means a better chance there will be more music in the future <3
That's also why I don't give money to homeless (but my country support for homeless is outstanding; when I lived elsewhere I donated to a homeless organisation - which hopefully meant that money didn't go on drugs).
Now I think about it I did once buy a video log of the production of an album. But that’s one artist from the thousands I listen to.
80-85% of revenue from goods sold go to the artists [0].
It's not like bands stopped selling CD's/BluRays's, collectible box-sets, stickers, pins, access to behind-the-scenes videos and mailing lists. But the most someone like you can do for an average band/performer is promote their art through any channels available. The most valuable resource you have is your attention.
Hmmm... it's a shame they're trying to sell stuff like this. I want to support artists but the last thing I want is junk.
Then we Spotifyd and that was the end of that and people got a new hobby coming up with justifications for why it's good that we replaced a revenue source for musicians with ... maybe giving them money? Or maybe having them run a T-shirt business?
Saying "maybe they can work for a living" is saying that people don't think that has value, in which case it's weird that anyone uses Spotify at all.
"Playing the song one time" is minimizing the work/time that goes into learning to play instruments, writing a song, coordinating the musicians for recording, and working on the production.
And it's a lot like saying software developers shouldn't be able to write a piece of code one time but get paid for people buying a copy or using a service running it on a server somewhere.
> Maybe they can work for a living.
> Not playing the song one time and then trying to sell copies of it.
As in writing a few lines of code and selling copies of it? What a condescending and out of touch take on the issue. Those albums and songs aren't made of thin air - it's actual work that goes into them.
Make sure the music is available when I want it. Send a bit of money to artists I want to support. But don't couple them together with a bunch of transactions I've got to manage individually.
But you can actually download/manage the file if you want to. Which is nice, because it's the most practical distinction between owning and a long term lease, given the fact that few things are forever.
You still have to keep track of what you've bought when and where. You have to answer questions like which release of an album you want (extended edition or not? Explicit or clean?). It's not a huge amount of effort, but it's extra faff compared to just listening to what you want when you want, and sending money to who you want when you want.
I gave up on buying after I moved countries and found I couldn't access my old cloud player and my new one at the same time. Yes, I have mp3 files of everything I bought in my old country, but it's such a fiddle to actually listen to them that I don't bother - particularly when I can find almost all of them in the service that I'm paying monthly for in my new country.
While we're talking about extra faff, how do you figure out how to send money to "who you want when you want"? Doesn't seem to be just one service everyone's taking OR sending money through any more than there's just one service anyone might buy recordings through. Or do we just say "If they're not on Kicktreonattrpaymo when it's on my mind I guess they don't want my money"?
Doesn't sound easier than keeping track of a few places you buy music. I've certainly never had any trouble at all figuring out whether I bought a recording on Amazon or Bandcamp.
And I know that my ledger's clear and doesn't depend on when I decide to get around to kicking a donation over.
It's interesting how the tenuously more convenient value proposition of cloud recording buffets features the convenience of pushing the hop through the hoop of actual economic support out into the undetermined and perhaps entirely optional future.
If this is all about convenience, Spotify could probably largely solve the economic problems by bumping up what they charge 5-10x and directing additional listener revenue by specific listener choices.
Yes. I don't owe them a business model, they're the professional here, it's their job to be where I want to pay them.
> And I know that my ledger's clear and doesn't depend on when I decide to get around to kicking a donation over.
There's no ledger here. If you want to pay them, pay them, if you don't, don't. If that wasn't an arrangement they were content with, well, revealed preferences.
> If this is all about convenience, Spotify could probably largely solve the economic problems by bumping up what they charge 5-10x and directing additional listener revenue by specific listener choices.
What economic problems? There's no shortage of content being created, so evidently the deal for creators isn't actually that bad.
I feel like you missed OPs main point.
If you're talking about 'capturing revenue' then there's a direct link between more attention and more money a band can get.
If you're in it for the passion, you'll do it whether you make money or not. Big successes are an anomaly, regardless of which mechanism the industry chooses to split up the loot. (Always in the favor of the publisher/label/whatever.)
If we want to encourage creativity, UBI is a better deal than worrying overmuch about trying to shoehorn creativity into revenue models. Because then at least the extra money, however much, would be extra on top instead of wholly inadequate.
I think the industry already accept it is the way forward.
Yes but this sort of makes me question, if it is on Youtube for free, why are we paying for it on Spotify and Apple Music?
But to humor you. Youtube is for video content primarily. Youtube Music is a premium service that costs as much as Spotify does and has a whole lot less content.
As someone who listens to a lot of music. Spotify offers me a way better UI/UX for consuming music than Youtube Music does.