8 ms·

Bandcamp is an odd site. It's existed for a very long time and is simple (or was when I last used it a couple years ago) in terms of application requirements. B

Bandcamp is an odd site. It's existed for a very long time and is simple (or was when I last used it a couple years ago) in terms of application requirements. Basically what I'm saying is it feels very much like a rails app you could build in a weekend. Direct upload mastered files to s3 from the artists, activejob to convert to various formats and throw back to s3 via activestorage, subdomain model scoping for artist pages, stripe integration for payments. Bandcamp has always felt like it should be someone's lifestyle business, like gumroad, and never seemed like it was trying to be a "business" that needed to add features or obsess over hyper hocky stick growth. If it tanks it's because it should have stayed as a weekend side project lifestyle business and never been bought by someone that wanted to convert it into a money printing machine because it never can be that type of business. With that said, if they do tank, it can seriously be replaced by someone in a weekend, maybe 2 :)

MSFT_Edging 3y ago
> With that said, if they do do tank, it can seriously be replaced by someone in a weekend, maybe 2 :) The back catalog of independent music on that site would be a huge loss. Every single artist would need to find and agree on that mythical hobby site, it would have to be able to handle the rapid growth if they were able to re-locate. I agree it should have stayed simple, but we continue to believe that things should grow forever or die in the doomed attempt, so we will never have nice things.
diggan 3y ago
> With that said, if they do tank, it can seriously be replaced by someone in a weekend, maybe 2 :) The technology probably could be replicated in a weekend, but as always, Bandcamp is more than just the technology. Labels, artists and the community trust(ed?) them as a place where people got treated more fairly and it wasn't focused solely on growth of the platform. To replicate that same thing that Bandcamp created might take the same amount of time, ~15 years.
adventured 3y ago
> With that said, if they do tank, it can seriously be replaced by someone in a weekend, maybe 2 It can't. The classic HN mistake here is to think the difficulty in replacement is engineering / building it. That's pretty much never the actual case. Engineering it [0] is the easiest part of building a replacement. [0] this part: "Direct upload mastered files to s3 from the artists, activejob to convert to various formats and throw back to s3 via activestorage, subdomain model scoping for artist pages, stripe integration for payments."
hk1337 3y ago
I have never used it but looking at the front page, it comes across like Vimeo is to Youtube but for music.
amrocha 3y ago
Here's a hypothetical scenario: - You're running the successor to Bandcamp - You're making good money, employ a couple staff - Epic comes to you offering millions to buy your business The rational choice is to sell. Would you choose the stress of running a sustainable business over the payout? I know I wouldn't. There's no indication afaik that Bandcamp was in financial trouble before they got acquired. This is inevitable in the current ecosystem.
- gizmo 3y ago
  Cheaters think everybody cheats when given the opportunity. Thieves believe only fear of the law is what keeps the masses in line. Liars believe lying is normal and that they’re only embellishing anyway and really it’s for the greater good and also pragmatic and necessary to succeed. There are many people who would not f their users and employees over when given the opportunity. Be like that.
  - lawlessone 3y ago
    Would like to think i wouldn't sell, but if someone massive company is offering my money, the worry is always they'll build their own later and stomp me anyway.
    - nerdponx 3y ago
      That and there's probably an element of wishful thinking. "I built this nice thing, and they promised me they won't mess it up."
    - diggan 3y ago
      That's why the product itself should not just be the technology stack (as GP might allude to), but something larger. In the case of Bandcamp, it's the relationships, community, trust and integrity that makes it what it is, and another massive company won't just be able to create those things by throwing random employees at the problem.
  - constantly 3y ago
a1o 3y ago
I kinda doubt it would be THAT easy to replicate but if you can do it, sell it to me.
shmde 3y ago
Why is bandcamp so big ? I could do that in a weekend.
- ulrikrasmussen 3y ago
  Then please do it! We need more sites like this.
- DiggyJohnson 3y ago
  Assuming you’re not being sarcastic, what would be your next move on Monday after you’ve created your working prototype?
- heleninboodler 3y ago
  You sound poised to make somewhere in the neighborhood of $273M in a weekend, then.
- Applejinx 3y ago
  Musicians have trusted it. Why should they trust you?
projectazorian 3y ago
> Bandcamp has always felt like it should be someone's lifestyle business, like gumroad, and never seemed like it was trying to be a "business" that needed to add features or obsess over hyper hocky stick growth. Bandcamp did seem like a chill midsize lifestyle business before the Epic acquisition. I suspect that Epic's acquisition offer was too good for the founders and board to turn down. (While Bandcamp wasn't a classic venture-funded startup they did have outside investors.)
- heleninboodler 3y ago
  > While Bandcamp wasn't a classic venture-funded startup they did have outside investors I don't think it's correct to say they weren't venture-funded. True Ventures lists them on their portfolio page. I don't know what that says about how much True Ventures put in, but they must have invested something.
  - projectazorian 3y ago
    Crunchbase says that was a Series A in 2010 with no further rounds, so I don't think that's inconsistent with my original post. They took some outside investment early on but their path looks nothing like the classic VC-funded growth trajectory.
    - heleninboodler 3y ago
      I can't help but make a wry observation that they are objectively VC-funded, but that by saying they aren't a "classic VC-funded growth trajectory" you're doing a No-True-Scotsman-style "not a true venture funded company" argument, and that they are literally a True Ventures funded company.. I'll show myself out. (Seriously though, I see your point and am not trying to bicker about this; I just think it's a funny situation)
draw_down 3y ago
[dead]
CamperBob2 3y ago
With that said, if they do tank, it can seriously be replaced by someone in a weekend, maybe 2 :) That's even more true for Twitter, and look what's happened... nothing.
- amatecha 3y ago
  Well, I mean.. Mastodon? Nearly 2 million monthly active users across some 10,000 servers. https://joinmastodon.org/servers https://joinmastodon.org/servers
hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
> Basically what I'm saying is it feels very much like a rails app you could build in a weekend. Downvoted solely for that comment. Honestly, I feel like it's so tiresome and lazy with the "X could be built in a weekend" or "Why does Y need so many employees?" comments. Sure, I've worked at companies that were easily overstaffed, and it's not hard to find some slack in any sizable company. But these kinds of comments pretty universally are completely lacking in insight of what it takes to operate and run a sizable business. It's basically just selfishness that people only comment on the limited slice (usually of programming work) that they understand.
- wutwutwat 3y ago
  To you and everyone else saying "you can't reproduce the business in a weekend" or that I'm overlooking that side of things, I specifically said "like a rails apps you could build in a weekend" because I was talking about... THE APP. I never did and never would claim that the user base, traction, brand recognition, or label deals could be replaced in a weekend. I was only speaking about the simplistic and minimal set of features for the bandcamp.com product. My words made it pretty clear what I was talking about so it feels like people choosing to view it as me saying the business side is more complex are just looking for an argument or to "tell me how it is". The logic here makes no sense. I DID NOT mention the business yet you people are giving me shit saying the business can't be replicated in a weekend. Where the F did I say that it could?! I SPECIFICALLY talked about an APP, and you're ignoring that key word and fighting me over something I never claimed.
efxhoy 3y ago
> Bandcamp has always felt like it should be someone's lifestyle business Me too. Layoffs are terrible for the people involved but I honestly don’t see why bandcamp would need more than a handful of employees. The more people you have to pay the more money you have to extract from your customers and the whole point of bandcamp was to be a very slim layer between artists and customers.

MSFT_Edging 3y ago

> With that said, if they do do tank, it can seriously be replaced by someone in a weekend, maybe 2 :) The back catalog of independent music on that site would be a huge loss. Every single artist would need to find and agree on that mythical hobby site, it would have to be able to handle the rapid growth if they were able to re-locate. I agree it should have stayed simple, but we continue to believe that things should grow forever or die in the doomed attempt, so we will never have nice things.

diggan 3y ago

> With that said, if they do tank, it can seriously be replaced by someone in a weekend, maybe 2 :) The technology probably could be replicated in a weekend, but as always, Bandcamp is more than just the technology. Labels, artists and the community trust(ed?) them as a place where people got treated more fairly and it wasn't focused solely on growth of the platform. To replicate that same thing that Bandcamp created might take the same amount of time, ~15 years.

adventured 3y ago

> With that said, if they do tank, it can seriously be replaced by someone in a weekend, maybe 2 It can't. The classic HN mistake here is to think the difficulty in replacement is engineering / building it. That's pretty much never the actual case. Engineering it [0] is the easiest part of building a replacement. [0] this part: "Direct upload mastered files to s3 from the artists, activejob to convert to various formats and throw back to s3 via activestorage, subdomain model scoping for artist pages, stripe integration for payments."

hk1337 3y ago

I have never used it but looking at the front page, it comes across like Vimeo is to Youtube but for music.

amrocha 3y ago

Here's a hypothetical scenario: - You're running the successor to Bandcamp - You're making good money, employ a couple staff - Epic comes to you offering millions to buy your business The rational choice is to sell. Would you choose the stress of running a sustainable business over the payout? I know I wouldn't. There's no indication afaik that Bandcamp was in financial trouble before they got acquired. This is inevitable in the current ecosystem.

gizmo 3y ago
Cheaters think everybody cheats when given the opportunity. Thieves believe only fear of the law is what keeps the masses in line. Liars believe lying is normal and that they’re only embellishing anyway and really it’s for the greater good and also pragmatic and necessary to succeed. There are many people who would not f their users and employees over when given the opportunity. Be like that.
- lawlessone 3y ago
  Would like to think i wouldn't sell, but if someone massive company is offering my money, the worry is always they'll build their own later and stomp me anyway.
  - nerdponx 3y ago
    That and there's probably an element of wishful thinking. "I built this nice thing, and they promised me they won't mess it up."
  - diggan 3y ago
    That's why the product itself should not just be the technology stack (as GP might allude to), but something larger. In the case of Bandcamp, it's the relationships, community, trust and integrity that makes it what it is, and another massive company won't just be able to create those things by throwing random employees at the problem.
- constantly 3y ago

a1o 3y ago

I kinda doubt it would be THAT easy to replicate but if you can do it, sell it to me.

shmde 3y ago

Why is bandcamp so big ? I could do that in a weekend.

ulrikrasmussen 3y ago
Then please do it! We need more sites like this.
DiggyJohnson 3y ago
Assuming you’re not being sarcastic, what would be your next move on Monday after you’ve created your working prototype?
heleninboodler 3y ago
You sound poised to make somewhere in the neighborhood of $273M in a weekend, then.
Applejinx 3y ago
Musicians have trusted it. Why should they trust you?

projectazorian 3y ago

> Bandcamp has always felt like it should be someone's lifestyle business, like gumroad, and never seemed like it was trying to be a "business" that needed to add features or obsess over hyper hocky stick growth. Bandcamp did seem like a chill midsize lifestyle business before the Epic acquisition. I suspect that Epic's acquisition offer was too good for the founders and board to turn down. (While Bandcamp wasn't a classic venture-funded startup they did have outside investors.)

heleninboodler 3y ago
> While Bandcamp wasn't a classic venture-funded startup they did have outside investors I don't think it's correct to say they weren't venture-funded. True Ventures lists them on their portfolio page. I don't know what that says about how much True Ventures put in, but they must have invested something.
- projectazorian 3y ago
  Crunchbase says that was a Series A in 2010 with no further rounds, so I don't think that's inconsistent with my original post. They took some outside investment early on but their path looks nothing like the classic VC-funded growth trajectory.
  - heleninboodler 3y ago
    I can't help but make a wry observation that they are objectively VC-funded, but that by saying they aren't a "classic VC-funded growth trajectory" you're doing a No-True-Scotsman-style "not a true venture funded company" argument, and that they are literally a True Ventures funded company.. I'll show myself out. (Seriously though, I see your point and am not trying to bicker about this; I just think it's a funny situation)

draw_down 3y ago

[dead]

CamperBob2 3y ago

With that said, if they do tank, it can seriously be replaced by someone in a weekend, maybe 2 :) That's even more true for Twitter, and look what's happened... nothing.

amatecha 3y ago
Well, I mean.. Mastodon? Nearly 2 million monthly active users across some 10,000 servers. https://joinmastodon.org/servers https://joinmastodon.org/servers

hn_throwaway_99 3y ago

> Basically what I'm saying is it feels very much like a rails app you could build in a weekend. Downvoted solely for that comment. Honestly, I feel like it's so tiresome and lazy with the "X could be built in a weekend" or "Why does Y need so many employees?" comments. Sure, I've worked at companies that were easily overstaffed, and it's not hard to find some slack in any sizable company. But these kinds of comments pretty universally are completely lacking in insight of what it takes to operate and run a sizable business. It's basically just selfishness that people only comment on the limited slice (usually of programming work) that they understand.

wutwutwat 3y ago
To you and everyone else saying "you can't reproduce the business in a weekend" or that I'm overlooking that side of things, I specifically said "like a rails apps you could build in a weekend" because I was talking about... THE APP. I never did and never would claim that the user base, traction, brand recognition, or label deals could be replaced in a weekend. I was only speaking about the simplistic and minimal set of features for the bandcamp.com product. My words made it pretty clear what I was talking about so it feels like people choosing to view it as me saying the business side is more complex are just looking for an argument or to "tell me how it is". The logic here makes no sense. I DID NOT mention the business yet you people are giving me shit saying the business can't be replicated in a weekend. Where the F did I say that it could?! I SPECIFICALLY talked about an APP, and you're ignoring that key word and fighting me over something I never claimed.

efxhoy 3y ago

> Bandcamp has always felt like it should be someone's lifestyle business Me too. Layoffs are terrible for the people involved but I honestly don’t see why bandcamp would need more than a handful of employees. The more people you have to pay the more money you have to extract from your customers and the whole point of bandcamp was to be a very slim layer between artists and customers.