bandcamp acquired by epic games?!

[auxien]

2 hours ago, o00o said:

Looks like they tried to form a union under epic and they got rid of the problem by selling the whole thing off and getting rid of half the staff

i don't think that had much if anything to do with Epic dropping Bandcamp.

the layoffs are a very bad sign tho. first that, then fees will go up. possibly by a lot.

3 hours ago, ignatius said:

hopefully they don't totally fuckover everyone who uses bandcamp. 

they will. fees will go up. mandatory inclusions with Songtradr licensing or whatever other BS they're dreaming up will come next. then they'll realize they're in over their heads after they start fucking up the community and try and drop it.

[zero]

https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/bandcamp-layoffs-oakland-songtradr-epic-18429463.php

 

[o00o]

58 is quite a lot. On the other hand I wonder what exactly where they doing there besides writing these editorial articles where they feature some indie band I never cared about plus giving them a free painting. 

The app can be coded by one person as a side job and the rest basically stayed the same for years. shipping is also done by the artists themselves. 

Edited October 17, 2023 by o00o

[droid]

It's about creating a community, and the writers played a curatorial role. Their "month in...' series was excellent, I found loads of great stuff there.  

[auxien]

16 minutes ago, o00o said:

58 is quite a lot. On the other hand I wonder what exactly where they doing there besides writing these editorial articles where they feature some indie band I never cared about plus giving them a free painting. 

The app can be coded by one person as a side job and the rest basically stayed the same for years. shipping is also done by the artists themselves. 

Songtradr plant confirmed

[iococoi]

16 minutes ago, auxien said:

Songtraitr plant confirmed

ftfy

[mcbpete]

38 minutes ago, o00o said:

The app can be coded by one person as a side job 

Absolutely, a site with around 30 million monthly hits and daily multi-terabyte traffic shouldn't need any more than a person (two tops) - Any more than that is just being wasteful

[o00o]

5 minutes ago, mcbpete said:

Absolutely, a site with around 30 million monthly hits and daily multi-terabyte traffic shouldn't need any more than a person (two tops) - Any more than that is just being wasteful

The app is  just a player with minimal functionality 
you could even create a web interface for that. 
 

scaling the website is a different beast no doubt about it

Edited October 17, 2023 by o00o

[iococoi]

maybe something based on

https://itch.io/ , https://itch.io/docs/general/about

could/would/should do the trick.

 

Edited October 17, 2023 by iococoi

[auxien]

4 minutes ago, iococoi said:

maybe something based on

https://itch.io/ , https://itch.io/docs/general/about

could/would/should do the trick.

 

i did see someone on Mastodon talking about itch.io as a potential (backend?) for a Bandcamp replacement. i’ve only nabbed one or two things from itch but the impression i have is that it’s a good vibes kinda place so maybe maybe maybe

[iococoi]

Quote

"Every member of Bandcamp union bargaining team was laid off in huge cuts at Oakland firm"

at the end of the day, we have to ask ourselves, "cui bono" from the current situation. the whole acquisition feels much more like an hostile takeover than anything else.

https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/is-bandcamp-as-we-know-it-over/

 

 

[o00o]

they suggest massdownloading all your purchases with this extension: 

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/batchcamp/jfcffbaekgnenlohblfgpohgdhalgjeb/related

O_o

[o00o]

1 hour ago, iococoi said:

at the end of the day, we have to ask ourselves, "cui bono" from the current situation. the whole acquisition feels much more like an hostile takeover than anything else.

https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/is-bandcamp-as-we-know-it-over/

 

 

A big chunk of of the tech sector is currently laid off.   180k layoffs only in the us this year. I guess bandcamp is just a small vessel in a big storm currently disrupting the tech sector which overgrew during the pandemic 

[iococoi]

Quote

it would be sadly appropriate if Songtradr is freaking out over the self-inflicted wound of skyrocketing bandwidth costs as everyone (myself included) is presently downloading their entire Bandcamp libraries in lossless formats

[Scaramouche]

FLAC Run

[o00o]

Quote

There are complaints that Discogs, the Wikipedia-like database and online vinyl marketplace, is increasing seller fees, which some have theorized might be a means of pumping up revenue in anticipation of a sale.

Shit starts hitting the fan 

[iococoi]

13 minutes ago, Scaramouche said:

FLAC Run

[oscillik]

On 10/17/2023 at 5:39 PM, Summon Dot E X E said:

... you could have a skeleton crew. Musk did that to Twitter AFAIK and it's still running.

haha

[auxien]

Quote

And that’s not to be underestimated – the real problem with online platforms at the moment is there’s no one home. Bandcamp isn’t free, either; apart from the fees they claim (Bandcamp Friday aside), a lot of labels pay for service.

Why is it that artists increasingly are asked to pay to share their music, pay again for service, and then pay again to get anyone to listen? 

I must also echo what Philip writes about Songtradr’s B2B “mood music” licensing model. At best, this seems a poor fit for Bandcamp. And that’s assuming anything happens at all. I can think of a lot of acquisitions that hinted at ambitious integration and strategy in a press release only to … do absolutely nothing, and sell the acquisition off later. The tendency of acquisitions to be accompanied by major layoffs might have something to do with that. Oddly enough, it’s tough to pursue bold new visions and expand and integrate different companies with different cultures if the first thing you do is get rid of half the people who might accomplish that.

https://cdm.link/2023/10/bandcamp-layoffs-reportedly-cut-deep-into-customer-service/

CDM listing some things. a really good summary of the current situation, with a few nods to potential paths forward.

apropos of nothing in particular: (https://tsrono.blot.im)

[iococoi]

[o00o]

maybe this is very subjective but can anyone confirm: bandcamp really dropped download speeds for me. like downloading one small EP takes me like 20-30 minutes in AIFF quality while it should talke only a couple of seconds with my 5G download speed. 

[mcbpete]

Last purchase was an Album in FLAC format on Wednesday or Thursday but didn't notice any speed decrease

[iococoi]

Quote

Courtney Love's essay about how the music industry degrades and fleeces artists seems just as relevant now, with the recent malarkey at Bandcamp

https://www.salon.com/2000/06/14/love_7/

[auxien]

Quote

Nina v2 is now live.

Beyond being easier to use, it comes with the features our users asked for the most, including the ability to upload albums, better tools for discovery and an interface that allows artists and fans to buy and sell music using a card—no crypto required. 

We wanted to create an online music ecosystem that reminds us of the DIY scenes we came from, that parallels the structure and interdependence native to these spaces.

https://www.ninaprotocol.com/articles/100-music-welcome-to-nina-v2

NINA has supposedly removed their crypto requirements...touting '100% music'. that's a nice writeup there, but my antenna are up with their being originally based on crypto, mentioning they've already 'sold 18% of the company to investors' and 'trying to create a DIY scene' stuff....this could all be honest, above-the-board business, but it all has me extra cautious.

that said, i'm going to look into them more since the crypto is gone, and see what they're about. anyone else knowing some stuff or if y'all have any experience, i'd love to hear about it (and i'm sure plenty other readers here would too).

[atypic]

Another big Bandcamp Friday today