3 ms·

> but how did they find out your album existed in the first place? No idea. Should I care? > As odd as it sounds, in music-as-a-business, the mentality needs

> but how did they find out your album existed in the first place? No idea. Should I care? > As odd as it sounds, in music-as-a-business, the mentality needs to be that the music you're putting out is marketing for the actual product I fundamentally disagree with this.

ixwt 3y ago
> No idea. Should I care? If you actually want more sales you probably want to know a bit about where they came from. To know which efforts are bringing in customers. Basic marketing.
IMTDb 3y ago
> No idea. Should I care? It really depends if you want to go to a second meal with your wife or not. But if you are selling something, knowing who your customers are and how you can reach them to let them know about your product is the absolute basic you need to get right before thinking about promoting it.
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
  My point was really that without any promotion (maybe a tweet?) I earned more from actually selling the album than I ever would via streaming it. Certainly if I wanted to sell more, I'd need to think about that sort of thing. But I'm already way out ahead of anyone in my position who had opted to rely on streaming for income.
  - RussianCow 3y ago
    The $50 you made doesn't prove anything. It's a small enough number to be statistically insignificant, and could easily have been a lucky fluke. You can't claim that your experience generalizes to higher income levels for people actually trying to make a living off music.
    - PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
      Alas, it's not easy to find actual statistics to describe the different income streams for the same artist on bandcamp vs. all other streaming services combined. Every musician I've spoken to who does both uniformly reports 10-1000x more income from bandcamp than from streaming. I could be talking to a too-small or unrepresentative group.
jrflowers 3y ago
> No idea. Should I care? This is a good question. Should you know how you made money? Do you need or want money? What even is a “sale” other than somebody giving you money for your music? “Should I know what led to the situation wherein people paid me money?” is a question bordering on mystical best left to the music philosophers and academics.
- dahfizz 3y ago
  It's clearly a hobby for OP, not everything needs to be optimized for profit.
  - RussianCow 3y ago
    That part is fine. What's not fine is the OP extrapolating that experience to Streaming Is Bad™ simply because they made some small (insignificant) amount of money taking a different path.
    - PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
      I'm no extrapolating. I'm saying two mostly unconnected things: 1. streaming is bad because musicians get paid a pittance for it. This remains true whether musicians could make more elsewhere or not. 2. there are other ways for musicians to get paid for their music (but many contemporary musicians do not bother to explore them, believing that streaming is the only answer).
      - RussianCow 3y ago
        #2 was not clear to me from the OP. Thanks for clarifying, as I do agree with that point. With that said, my argument is that none of the options are mutually exclusive. You can have your music on Spotify and sell albums and do tours. Why rob yourself of a great marketing tool for bringing in new listeners?
      - ixwt 3y ago
        One could argue that the pittance that musicians get paid for streams is really them getting paid for their content getting marketed for them. This leads to concerts, where they get paid more for performing their content. Yes, I agree with you that I would love to support more artists directly through things like Bandcamp or a similar platform rather than streaming platforms. I actually did look into doing it. Many of the artists I enjoy don't have any way for me to easily purchase their music directly. And I can only enjoy them through streaming.

ixwt 3y ago

> No idea. Should I care? If you actually want more sales you probably want to know a bit about where they came from. To know which efforts are bringing in customers. Basic marketing.

IMTDb 3y ago

> No idea. Should I care? It really depends if you want to go to a second meal with your wife or not. But if you are selling something, knowing who your customers are and how you can reach them to let them know about your product is the absolute basic you need to get right before thinking about promoting it.

PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
My point was really that without any promotion (maybe a tweet?) I earned more from actually selling the album than I ever would via streaming it. Certainly if I wanted to sell more, I'd need to think about that sort of thing. But I'm already way out ahead of anyone in my position who had opted to rely on streaming for income.
- RussianCow 3y ago
  The $50 you made doesn't prove anything. It's a small enough number to be statistically insignificant, and could easily have been a lucky fluke. You can't claim that your experience generalizes to higher income levels for people actually trying to make a living off music.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
    Alas, it's not easy to find actual statistics to describe the different income streams for the same artist on bandcamp vs. all other streaming services combined. Every musician I've spoken to who does both uniformly reports 10-1000x more income from bandcamp than from streaming. I could be talking to a too-small or unrepresentative group.

jrflowers 3y ago

> No idea. Should I care? This is a good question. Should you know how you made money? Do you need or want money? What even is a “sale” other than somebody giving you money for your music? “Should I know what led to the situation wherein people paid me money?” is a question bordering on mystical best left to the music philosophers and academics.

dahfizz 3y ago
It's clearly a hobby for OP, not everything needs to be optimized for profit.
- RussianCow 3y ago
  That part is fine. What's not fine is the OP extrapolating that experience to Streaming Is Bad™ simply because they made some small (insignificant) amount of money taking a different path.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
    I'm no extrapolating. I'm saying two mostly unconnected things: 1. streaming is bad because musicians get paid a pittance for it. This remains true whether musicians could make more elsewhere or not. 2. there are other ways for musicians to get paid for their music (but many contemporary musicians do not bother to explore them, believing that streaming is the only answer).
    - RussianCow 3y ago
      #2 was not clear to me from the OP. Thanks for clarifying, as I do agree with that point. With that said, my argument is that none of the options are mutually exclusive. You can have your music on Spotify and sell albums and do tours. Why rob yourself of a great marketing tool for bringing in new listeners?
    - ixwt 3y ago
      One could argue that the pittance that musicians get paid for streams is really them getting paid for their content getting marketed for them. This leads to concerts, where they get paid more for performing their content. Yes, I agree with you that I would love to support more artists directly through things like Bandcamp or a similar platform rather than streaming platforms. I actually did look into doing it. Many of the artists I enjoy don't have any way for me to easily purchase their music directly. And I can only enjoy them through streaming.