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As a musician once on there, I joined, spent a lot of time carefully designing my page and uploading my catalogue, and then I paid $20 a month for their premium

As a musician once on there, I joined, spent a lot of time carefully designing my page and uploading my catalogue, and then I paid $20 a month for their premium service for absolutely no traction on the site beyond external promotion I did. The UI on BandCamp has been vastly outdated for ages now, it was very hard to navigate and find new music by genre. i only go there to buy music if I have a direct link. It's a pre-soundcloud site, and even soundcloud (with a superior UI) was going broke years ago. I was unaware they had a staff of developers, I envision most of them were on the bench most of the time. Bandcamp doesn't even allow YouTube video embedding for music videos, which is a huge mistake alone. Music platforms should be heavily promoting any independent artist that pays them a monthly fee... They seem to think that monthly subscription money form hard working artists is simply for extra file storage above free accounts. I can't wait until something far better with an artist focus comes along, and no that is not Spotify.

hamburglar 3y ago
I’m not sure where you got the idea that the premium service included promotion. Last I looked, the subscription simply unlocked some specific features. If you just paid for it and hoped that meant your band was going to be promoted, you threw your money away, but that hardly seems like bandcamp’s fault.
- ezconnect 3y ago
  He's thinking of engagement and discovery like youtube or the old MySpace experience for independent music creators. People land on the page and discover new artists and easy discovery of new ones.
  - hamburglar 3y ago
    Ok, but still, that isn’t something bandcamp claims to do. How can one be upset they didn’t get that?
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
amrocha 3y ago
What's wrong with a paid storefront for artists? Considering the rest of the ecommerce ecosystem, 20$ seems fair. Have you considered that 20$ is just the cost of doing business? Discoverability is a problem yes, but I don't know that it's a solvable one. And if Bandcamp tried seriously to solve it, they would likely have to rely on investment money, and eventually enshittify the platform.
- dharmab 3y ago
  $240/yr is too much for simple hosting- a small artist can get that for free these days, especially if they don't need DRM. For the price you'd expect promotion and discovery.
  - LegitShady 3y ago
    It's not just the web hosting it's the whole trusted vendor you already have an account with.
  - amrocha 3y ago
    Yes, you can get that for cheaper, but then you're not the customer you're the product. If you tried rolling your own solution you'd be paying more than 20$ per month.
    - dharmab 3y ago
      I pay $0 a month to host a website. A number of artists I've bought from have you pay with paypal and a download link is included on your receipt. That's what, nine cents per transaction plus five percent, and minimal egress charges from a cloud provider.
      - amrocha 3y ago
        Hosting costs money and you're getting that for free, so there's something else going on there. You're paying for PayPal on their margin.
some-guy 3y ago
While the feature-set isn't the best, I find their simple UI to be a breath of fresh air and easy to navigate.
- nerdponx 3y ago
  The UI is good overall, but the search system is the worst I've ever seen. And there's no "open in app" link on the mobile site. Been like this for as long as I've been using it. It's like they don't want to be more successful than they already are.
  - toomim 3y ago
    But that's a good thing. "Open this in the app" links are the worst advertising scum on the web.
    - heleninboodler 3y ago
      Generally I'd agree with you, but for certain apps, it would be nice to be given the option. I never want to be forced to use the app, but sometimes when looking at a bandcamp page and checking out the music, I'd like to switch over to listening in the app, since I don't have to keep the browser window on top for it to continue playing. The only way to do that is to go use the (bad) search feature in the app to find the thing you're already looking at in the browser.
      - disposition2 3y ago
        Not the answer you wanted but… Why not to favorite what you’re looking at in the browser and then open favorites in the app…if it turns out you don’t like what hear, unfavorite.
      - nerdponx 3y ago
        Precisely. I specifically want to use the Bandcamp app, but there's literally no way to switch from web to app. There's no way to put a URL into the app, and the search is so incredibly bad that it's almost impossible to find the thing I'm already listening to, even when I'm already logged in in both places.
splittingTimes 3y ago
I always enjoyed their weekly Bandcamp radio show. It was a great way to discover new artists, often from genres I would not necessarily listen to. Not sure why they stopped it some years ago. Real pitty.
biorach 3y ago
> i only go there to buy music if I have a direct link. > Bandcamp doesn't even allow YouTube video embedding for music videos, which is a huge mistake alone. > Music platforms should be heavily promoting any independent artist that pays them a monthly fee... They seem to think that monthly subscription money form hard working artists is simply for extra file storage above free accounts. You haven't really understood the value Bandcamp offers and you're criticising them for not being something they never claimed to be. You need to do your own promotion.
- nomel 3y ago
  This is exactly why I have Spotify rather than bandcamp. It finds music I like, regardless of musician effort. I found more new musicians in the first year of Spotify than decades before. It’s a loss for everyone if good music goes unheard.
  - comprev 3y ago
    on the flip side to this, I don't have Spotify because curating music is a hobby of mine. The research from various sources - forums, FB groups, Discogs, Bandcamp mailing lists, etc. is part of the journey.
    - racked 3y ago
      Is there a place you share your playlists? Would be curious to have a listen.
  - reactordev 3y ago
    It’s a loss to musicians to have a monopoly like Spotify (who likes to recreate popular songs with their own artists and label) be the gatekeeper to what is good music. From a service perspective, it’s great. I have the worlds music at my fingertips. From a music perspective it’s horrible. I have one company dictating streaming payments and terms on an entire industry and you’re f&$ked if you don’t play nice. Ask Taylor Swift.
    - 3y ago
te_chris 3y ago
This is a bad take. It’s massive in the electronic space.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
conradfr 3y ago
Bandcamp was profitable at least until their sale to Epic.
jcpst 3y ago
This is an interesting perspective to say the least. I’ve been impressed with the work their developer team has done over the years. I can’t say I shared your troubles finding new music on there. It’s been the best place for me to discover new artists. The recommendation systems, following artists, and their unique write-ups on artists, scenes, genres are quality. You’re take on what they ‘should’ be doing seems very misguided. I’m surprised that you think Bandcamp Pro is a hands-off marketing and promotion service. They are absolutely clear about what they offer for $10/month, and no where do they say they’ll promote your music for you. They have provided an entire guide for _how_ to promote on bandcamp: https://bandcamp.com/guide https://bandcamp.com/guide
Pxtl 3y ago
See, for me I like that Bandcamp is just a store. That I see an artist I like on social media, click their bandcamp link, and if I like their music I buy it. I don't use its recommendation features, and the only social feature I use is the ability to follow an artist and thus get news-bulletins about their work. Once you get to an artist's page, the UI is simple and clean and Just Works. I can see their releases, buy and download them easily. That's what I want when shopping. Imho, Bandcamp shouldn't even offer that kind of $20 "promotion subscription" thing you mention. Just sell music, take the cut, and be done with it. Honestly my only real UI complaint about Bandcamp is that artists often move between labels and collabs and the label runs the bandcamp page so their music is mixed in with all their labelmates. That's where I find it gets very confusing. Like most of Lauren Bousfield's albums are at https://laurenbousfieldanyev3r.bandcamp.com/ https://laurenbousfieldanyev3r.bandcamp.com/ except her latest album which is here: https://orangemilkrecords.bandcamp.com/album/salesforce https://orangemilkrecords.bandcamp.com/album/salesforce and is not linked from her personal page at all. Another album (Palimpsest) is linked from her personal page, but if you click on the artist of that one it takes you to a different label (https://deathbombarc.bandcamp.com/ https://deathbombarc.bandcamp.com/). So obviously something is horribly wrong with navigation in how it handles labels and the like.
- verall 3y ago
  Off topic the article but I _love_ her new album Also funny since I originally heard NDAD through a Spotify recommendation before eventually buying her discography on Bandcamp
  - Pxtl 3y ago
    Yeah, I got into shopping for weird stuff on Bandcamp when we went remote, started out with postrock and postmetal stuff and then a Twitter thread about the strangest music made by trans women made me a fan of Bousfield.
- alexjplant 3y ago
  Sweet Jesus... this is Danza/Frontierer/Car Bomb levels of heaviness but with experimental pop instead. I'm gonna have to ease myself into this album.
Tao3300 3y ago
> The UI on BandCamp has been vastly outdated for ages now That's what I like about it. It's essentially what MySpace was supposed to be.
- rchaud 3y ago
  Yup, that BC's UI hasn't changed since 2016 is a good thing.
nanidin 3y ago
Bandcamp always struck me as a place for producers to sell to DJ’s since you can get high bitrate MP3’s and lossless files. A pattern I’ve seen is that artists will put a new release on Bandcamp a week before it’s available on streaming services. This lets them pull in more revenue by selling the album for $10 to enthusiasts before it’s released to the masses.
toomim 3y ago
> soundcloud (with a superior UI) You lost me there.
slmjkdbtl 3y ago
I'm the opposite. Found Bandcamp UI pretty good, intuitive and no bs, discovered tons of good music through the Discover section on the bottom front page. Also the Bandcamp blogposts are the among the best music article. Soundcloud on the other hand I would only go via directly link. I guess it also relates to the genre you're interested in, my favorite artists probably never post to Soundcloud.
RockRobotRock 3y ago
A lot of the things you dislike about the platform are things I like about it. No bloat. You buy music and download it.

hamburglar 3y ago

I’m not sure where you got the idea that the premium service included promotion. Last I looked, the subscription simply unlocked some specific features. If you just paid for it and hoped that meant your band was going to be promoted, you threw your money away, but that hardly seems like bandcamp’s fault.

ezconnect 3y ago
He's thinking of engagement and discovery like youtube or the old MySpace experience for independent music creators. People land on the page and discover new artists and easy discovery of new ones.
- hamburglar 3y ago
  Ok, but still, that isn’t something bandcamp claims to do. How can one be upset they didn’t get that?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

amrocha 3y ago

What's wrong with a paid storefront for artists? Considering the rest of the ecommerce ecosystem, 20$ seems fair. Have you considered that 20$ is just the cost of doing business? Discoverability is a problem yes, but I don't know that it's a solvable one. And if Bandcamp tried seriously to solve it, they would likely have to rely on investment money, and eventually enshittify the platform.

dharmab 3y ago
$240/yr is too much for simple hosting- a small artist can get that for free these days, especially if they don't need DRM. For the price you'd expect promotion and discovery.
- LegitShady 3y ago
  It's not just the web hosting it's the whole trusted vendor you already have an account with.
- amrocha 3y ago
  Yes, you can get that for cheaper, but then you're not the customer you're the product. If you tried rolling your own solution you'd be paying more than 20$ per month.
  - dharmab 3y ago
    I pay $0 a month to host a website. A number of artists I've bought from have you pay with paypal and a download link is included on your receipt. That's what, nine cents per transaction plus five percent, and minimal egress charges from a cloud provider.
    - amrocha 3y ago
      Hosting costs money and you're getting that for free, so there's something else going on there. You're paying for PayPal on their margin.

some-guy 3y ago

While the feature-set isn't the best, I find their simple UI to be a breath of fresh air and easy to navigate.

nerdponx 3y ago
The UI is good overall, but the search system is the worst I've ever seen. And there's no "open in app" link on the mobile site. Been like this for as long as I've been using it. It's like they don't want to be more successful than they already are.
- toomim 3y ago
  But that's a good thing. "Open this in the app" links are the worst advertising scum on the web.
  - heleninboodler 3y ago
    Generally I'd agree with you, but for certain apps, it would be nice to be given the option. I never want to be forced to use the app, but sometimes when looking at a bandcamp page and checking out the music, I'd like to switch over to listening in the app, since I don't have to keep the browser window on top for it to continue playing. The only way to do that is to go use the (bad) search feature in the app to find the thing you're already looking at in the browser.
    - disposition2 3y ago
      Not the answer you wanted but… Why not to favorite what you’re looking at in the browser and then open favorites in the app…if it turns out you don’t like what hear, unfavorite.
    - nerdponx 3y ago
      Precisely. I specifically want to use the Bandcamp app, but there's literally no way to switch from web to app. There's no way to put a URL into the app, and the search is so incredibly bad that it's almost impossible to find the thing I'm already listening to, even when I'm already logged in in both places.

splittingTimes 3y ago

I always enjoyed their weekly Bandcamp radio show. It was a great way to discover new artists, often from genres I would not necessarily listen to. Not sure why they stopped it some years ago. Real pitty.

biorach 3y ago

> i only go there to buy music if I have a direct link. > Bandcamp doesn't even allow YouTube video embedding for music videos, which is a huge mistake alone. > Music platforms should be heavily promoting any independent artist that pays them a monthly fee... They seem to think that monthly subscription money form hard working artists is simply for extra file storage above free accounts. You haven't really understood the value Bandcamp offers and you're criticising them for not being something they never claimed to be. You need to do your own promotion.

nomel 3y ago
This is exactly why I have Spotify rather than bandcamp. It finds music I like, regardless of musician effort. I found more new musicians in the first year of Spotify than decades before. It’s a loss for everyone if good music goes unheard.
- comprev 3y ago
  on the flip side to this, I don't have Spotify because curating music is a hobby of mine. The research from various sources - forums, FB groups, Discogs, Bandcamp mailing lists, etc. is part of the journey.
  - racked 3y ago
    Is there a place you share your playlists? Would be curious to have a listen.
- reactordev 3y ago
  It’s a loss to musicians to have a monopoly like Spotify (who likes to recreate popular songs with their own artists and label) be the gatekeeper to what is good music. From a service perspective, it’s great. I have the worlds music at my fingertips. From a music perspective it’s horrible. I have one company dictating streaming payments and terms on an entire industry and you’re f&$ked if you don’t play nice. Ask Taylor Swift.
  - 3y ago

te_chris 3y ago

This is a bad take. It’s massive in the electronic space.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

conradfr 3y ago

Bandcamp was profitable at least until their sale to Epic.

jcpst 3y ago

This is an interesting perspective to say the least. I’ve been impressed with the work their developer team has done over the years. I can’t say I shared your troubles finding new music on there. It’s been the best place for me to discover new artists. The recommendation systems, following artists, and their unique write-ups on artists, scenes, genres are quality. You’re take on what they ‘should’ be doing seems very misguided. I’m surprised that you think Bandcamp Pro is a hands-off marketing and promotion service. They are absolutely clear about what they offer for $10/month, and no where do they say they’ll promote your music for you. They have provided an entire guide for _how_ to promote on bandcamp: https://bandcamp.com/guide https://bandcamp.com/guide

Pxtl 3y ago

See, for me I like that Bandcamp is just a store. That I see an artist I like on social media, click their bandcamp link, and if I like their music I buy it. I don't use its recommendation features, and the only social feature I use is the ability to follow an artist and thus get news-bulletins about their work. Once you get to an artist's page, the UI is simple and clean and Just Works. I can see their releases, buy and download them easily. That's what I want when shopping. Imho, Bandcamp shouldn't even offer that kind of $20 "promotion subscription" thing you mention. Just sell music, take the cut, and be done with it. Honestly my only real UI complaint about Bandcamp is that artists often move between labels and collabs and the label runs the bandcamp page so their music is mixed in with all their labelmates. That's where I find it gets very confusing. Like most of Lauren Bousfield's albums are at https://laurenbousfieldanyev3r.bandcamp.com/ https://laurenbousfieldanyev3r.bandcamp.com/ except her latest album which is here: https://orangemilkrecords.bandcamp.com/album/salesforce https://orangemilkrecords.bandcamp.com/album/salesforce and is not linked from her personal page at all. Another album (Palimpsest) is linked from her personal page, but if you click on the artist of that one it takes you to a different label (https://deathbombarc.bandcamp.com/ https://deathbombarc.bandcamp.com/). So obviously something is horribly wrong with navigation in how it handles labels and the like.

verall 3y ago
Off topic the article but I _love_ her new album Also funny since I originally heard NDAD through a Spotify recommendation before eventually buying her discography on Bandcamp
- Pxtl 3y ago
  Yeah, I got into shopping for weird stuff on Bandcamp when we went remote, started out with postrock and postmetal stuff and then a Twitter thread about the strangest music made by trans women made me a fan of Bousfield.
alexjplant 3y ago
Sweet Jesus... this is Danza/Frontierer/Car Bomb levels of heaviness but with experimental pop instead. I'm gonna have to ease myself into this album.

Tao3300 3y ago

> The UI on BandCamp has been vastly outdated for ages now That's what I like about it. It's essentially what MySpace was supposed to be.

rchaud 3y ago
Yup, that BC's UI hasn't changed since 2016 is a good thing.

nanidin 3y ago

Bandcamp always struck me as a place for producers to sell to DJ’s since you can get high bitrate MP3’s and lossless files. A pattern I’ve seen is that artists will put a new release on Bandcamp a week before it’s available on streaming services. This lets them pull in more revenue by selling the album for $10 to enthusiasts before it’s released to the masses.

toomim 3y ago

> soundcloud (with a superior UI) You lost me there.

slmjkdbtl 3y ago

I'm the opposite. Found Bandcamp UI pretty good, intuitive and no bs, discovered tons of good music through the Discover section on the bottom front page. Also the Bandcamp blogposts are the among the best music article. Soundcloud on the other hand I would only go via directly link. I guess it also relates to the genre you're interested in, my favorite artists probably never post to Soundcloud.

RockRobotRock 3y ago

A lot of the things you dislike about the platform are things I like about it. No bloat. You buy music and download it.