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Subvert – Collectively owned music marketplace
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- ozornin 2y agoWhat exactly is meant by co-ownership in your case? What exact "Ability to influence platform policies and features" would I have and how are product/business decisions made? What is the organisation structure? The phrase "Collective ownership" sounds romantic but it can mean many things, from very good to outright scam, depending on implementation.
- n-exploit 2y agoIt's structured as a multi-stakeholder cooperative, from what I understand. "Building an artist-owned platform is a complex challenge, but it’s one we are uniquely positioned to solve. Our growing coalition includes founders of Ampled, a project that helped pioneer the concept of cooperative platforms, as well as artists, music industry professionals, and specialists in cooperative law and platform economics. " From a introductory blog post. https://subvert.fm/blog/a-collectively-owned-bandcamp-successor/ https://subvert.fm/blog/a-collectively-owned-bandcamp-succes... More on the co-op model in the FAQ. https://subvert.fm/docs/what-does-it-mean-to-join-the-co-op/ https://subvert.fm/docs/what-does-it-mean-to-join-the-co-op/
- factormeta 2y agowould this be like open-collective for musicians?
- n-exploit 2y agoI could see the economics working similar to OpenCollective, but different governance. I know OC announced a restructuring recently, but I don't think it's a co-op model.
- factormeta 2y agoAh never mind, read through the site a bit more. They are aiming to be the Mondragon [1] of music. The co-op modal seems interesting, so is socially beneficial corp. In the end of day it is all about implementation. It is nice that there are lawyers and economists involved, but are the founders sound artists? have they toured? run a music venue? Asking for the founding fee of $100 seems quite a bit much, but then again does seems a bit like the vibe coming from LA area who is out of touch with the rest of the world. [1]https://www.mondragon-corporation.com/en/ https://www.mondragon-corporation.com/en/
- ozornin 2y agoI've read the Docs https://subvert.fm/docs/ https://subvert.fm/docs/, co-op bylaws draft https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zbobfJY4a7-dVdrgk6bSJh89AI7BusS9/view https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zbobfJY4a7-dVdrgk6bSJh89AI7... and roadmap https://subvert.fm/roadmap/ https://subvert.fm/roadmap/ and got answers to all the questions above.
- n-exploit 2y agoI'm glad to see new concepts emerge like this that challenge the governance and benefit of platforms by shareholder corporations for their own self-interested purposes. I joined as a "Founding Supporter" of the Subvert co-op last night when I saw a post on my Twitter (X) feed. I really hope to see more tech cooperatives in the future. The dominant paradigm of neo-fiefdom tech platforms is both tired and uninspiring.
- jsheard 2y agoHow is Bandcamp doing nowadays? I know the backstory of it being bought by Epic, then Epic realizing they have no use for a music store and selling it off to Songtradr who immediately gutted it by firing half of the staff, but I don't use it enough to know if enshittification has set in yet.
- n-exploit 2y agoThis sounds like enshittification itself, in its own way. Rotating hands to the highest bidder.
- joemi 2y agoHow in the world is it enshittification if there's no noticeable change to users? Nothing got shittier, so doesn't that by definition mean it's not enshittification?
- mixedbit 2y agoI haven't notice any degradation so far. Recently they even announced a Bandcamp Friday - a day when a Bandcamp commission is 0 and all income from sales goes to the artists. Doesn't look like they try to squeeze as much profits as possible and slowly kill the platform in doing so.
- lancesells 2y agoI think that's been going on since early 2020. And yeah, I can't really tell a difference between Bandcamp before it was sold and today. It's a shame that they not only sold to Epic of all companies but then fired so many people.
- pessimizer 2y ago> fired so many people. If there's no degradation, it should have been done long ago. Those salaries come out of musicians' pockets.
- dang 2y agoRecent and related: A Collectively Owned Bandcamp Successor - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41309217 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41309217 - Aug 2024 (2 comments)
- pragma_x 2y agoThe most recent blog post they have up is titled "The Mondragon of Music" which, frankly, is all I needed to see. https://subvert.fm/blog/our-50-year-roadmap-the-mondragon-of-music/ https://subvert.fm/blog/our-50-year-roadmap-the-mondragon-of... The article mentions the highlights, but a deeper drive into the Mondragon Corp can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation
- n-exploit 2y agoMondragon is a great model demonstrating the greater possibilities within complementary-industry cooperative economy. Mondragon is partnership between and across industries. I could see the regional distribution of industry across/within geography, as applied within Mondragon, mapping well to genre distribution across/within industry production tooling/technologies for Subvert.
- NetOpWibby 2y agoMondragon Corp sounds incredible, thanks for sharing. I joined Subvert as an artist, looking forward to releasing remastered music on there next year.
- mmooss 2y agoIt's a great start. Co-ops and non-profits can also be subverted and taken over. I hope you look ahead and plan very carefully. For example, according to an (unverified) story someone told me, a vendor to US east coast food cooperatives now controls many of them; they get their person in, pass bylaws empowering them and disempowering the board (the board usually lacking sophistication), and have deeper pockets for any legal struggle than any co-op member does. Also, I remember in the news that a non-profit or limited-profit company in the IT industry, founded for the public good, is going to be turned into a for-profit. The board actually fired the person behind this plan, but that person came back and fired the board members.
- __MatrixMan__ 2y agoThe FAQ has: > Is this a crypto thing? >> No. I realize that crypto is a bad word for some people, but I think that the above answer has a corollary: > Does it have a single point of control that will attract corruption if enough of us start using it? >> Yes Certainly plenty of poorly designed crypto things also have that point of control, but a well designed crypto thing at least has a shot at resilience.
- fwip 2y agoI think the failure rate for crypto organizations is much higher than the average org.
- sam0x17 2y agocentralization is easy
- portaouflop 2y ago>the reason all crypto companies are scams and corrupt is just because the problem is so hard, not because of inherent flaws in the idea and the incompatibility of lofty goals with reality. I’m all for decentralisation but blockchain ain’t it.
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- bee_rider 2y agoA successor to bandcamp would be really nice. I think it is hard to determine if a site will become one, because it is largely about network effect—Bandcamp had enough users (customers and artists) that it was, like, worthwhile to give them your credit card info… Totally tangential and probably revealing that I have absolutely no understanding of the music creation ecosystem and process, but is there room for, like, an online collaboration system? Like a Unity asset store for samples or something? Allow people to remix and then handle the pay out automatically when songs get bought?
- colkassad 2y agoThere is this: https://www.kompoz.com/ https://www.kompoz.com/ It's geared more towards collaboration and there is some system to share any income that gets derived (not sure how it worked). You find someone's song page, download the existing tracks (stems) and work on your own, uploading to the collection when you are finished. I collaborated with some artists and it was fun and I met some folks. They set up payments but I never expected anything to come from that. I thought finding projects that are interesting to collaborate on was difficult. It's just a big pile of music of varying quality and genres.
- pdntspa 2y agoThe "Unity Asset Store" is effectively Splice But the licensing doesn't do pay outs, with sampling you pay once and its yours to use as you see fit. As it should be, we don't need anyone else sticking their hands out.
- bee_rider 2y agoIn general, imo, if somebody contributes usefully to a project they should get paid in line with their contribution. The flat rate makes sense from an era when tracking that sort of stuff was difficult, but I dunno, it seems like it ought to be possible to track this sort of stuff automatically nowadays.
- gradientsrneat 2y ago> worthwhile to give them your credit card info Bandcamp didn't even accept people's credit card info (maybe it's changed in recent years and they have more payment options now). They outsourced payment processing to PayPal. Most small shopping sites in USA don't handle their own payments due to regulations.
- thenoblesunfish 2y agoThis is so awesome. Not because it will necessarily work or be incorruptible, but because it can be replicated.
- n-exploit 2y agoThey're being very open about the legal structuring too, with open source legal docs and agreements. https://subvert.fm/changelog/ https://subvert.fm/changelog/
- mitchitized 2y agoFinally, a website that convinced me to write my own CSS overrides.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- freedomben 2y agoI think this is great, but I do hope thought is being put into solving the hardest problem of all IMHO: Music Discovery I have bought a lot on Bandcamp, but would have bought 10x more if I could just find stuff I liked. The existing system makes discovery nearly impossible unless you happen to like the stuff being mainly bought and curated or are in a lucky genre. Discoverability is especially hard because 99% of the music people create sucks. This may not seem true if you mainly listen to "radio" and playlists, but if you ever get access to a large catalog of independent music, try picking stuff at pseudo-random and take notes. As much as I love good art (and I do), most art is not good art. You can't go on popularity because some of the great artists (especially on Bandcamp) are relatively unknown and therefore are not popular. For example, Thousand Needles in Red is a phenomenal band with great albums, and almost completely unknown. These Four Walls is similar (but at least they are on Youtube Music/Spotify/etc). I'd buy the crap out of similar albums, but discovering them is very challenging. I mainly found those two out of random luck. Anyway I'm rambling, but I do hope you can figure out a good means for discovery. I think finding and grouping people with similar tastes is among the best ways, and also having artists that a person likes recommend other artists can be super valuable.
- lancesells 2y agoThat's interesting that you say discovery is hard on Bandcamp. I've actually found their blog content great at finding new artists. Their editorial staff seems to be really tuned in and articles like this make me very happy: https://daily.bandcamp.com/lists/aphex-twin-selected-ambient-works-volume-ii-list https://daily.bandcamp.com/lists/aphex-twin-selected-ambient...
- pdntspa 2y agoThat's very simple... a) Find good DJs playing music you like (YouTube is very helpful here, as is partying) b) Listen to their sets c) Shazam (or just trainspot) the tracks you like. (Shazam has a really nice integration with SPotify that dumps everything it IDs into a Spotify playlist) I am a DJ and constantly on the hunt for new music, this is how I find most of it. No algorithms necessary!
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- ChrisArchitect 2y agoSo, great, another place to host and sell your music. Love bandcamp. Nothing really that special about it. It rose to popularity because it didn't take that much of a cut of sales from the artists and was offering the easy ability to host all the digital files etc. What's different about this? The 'artists' will have a say on the cut that Subvert is taking? Shrug. All sounds fine and not really that complicated. It will all come down to traction and getting a lot of artists/labels to move there, and that is a crapshoot really. Especially since Bandcamp currently hasn't been impacted in any major way. That and the usual not-really-that-minor challenges of hosting/bandwidth/payment processing fees at scale.
- n-exploit 2y agoYou might underestimate the power games that are artist royalties agreements and the current domination by large corporates.
- jtafurth 2y agoThe real problem with the platform I think is discoverability, and that will get affected more and more with corporate clutches. However I do agree with your point overall, I'm struggling to see how this will not go the same path in a few years.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y agoI like it! Why aren't there more creator owned platforms?
- n-exploit 2y agoI think silicon valley actually LIKES founder fiefdoms. Not really the same spirit as worker cooperatives. The cap table is the game.
- FactKnower69 2y agohard for investors to get paid for other people's work when the workers own their profits :(
- wavemode 2y agoEdit: it's been pointed out to me that the zine actually is publicly available for free - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ra6r2zSkw7NCYNTAqP9923ValZiYmXfE/view https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ra6r2zSkw7NCYNTAqP9923ValZi... I really like the overall idea. Two thoughts I had while browsing. From the main page: > PURCHASE ZINE Is the only way to get a copy of the manifesto, really to purchase it (or join as a member)? How is someone supposed to even know whether they want to be involved in the project, if they aren't allowed to read the document first? and from the Docs: > How is Subvert funded? Unless I missed it, nothing in docs mentions the most obvious source of funding for a marketplace - a cut of revenue? Is there any plan for that? If I were a member of such a collective, I'd rather give the collective a small cut of my revenue than have to deal with the complexity and risks (and potential loss of control) of dealing with outside investors.
- n-exploit 2y ago> > PURCHASE ZINE > Is the only way to get a copy of the manifesto, really to purchase it (or join as a member)? How is someone supposed to even know whether they want to be involved in the project, if they aren't allowed to read the document first? The ZINE is publicly available: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ra6r2zSkw7NCYNTAqP9923ValZiYmXfE/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ra6r2zSkw7NCYNTAqP9923ValZi...
- FireInsight 2y agoFAQ: "Can I read the zine first?" has an email input box.
- kevincox 2y agoSo you at least need to pay with personal information before you even know about the cause you are paying to.
- hamburglar 2y agoIf the extremely minute “payment” of coming up with a throwaway email address to get it sent to is too much for you, I don’t know what to tell you. This is one step above complaining that you have to “pay” by expending the energy to click a hyperlink.
- slothtrop 2y agoAmpwall is also a thing, a public benefit company - https://ampwall.com/ https://ampwall.com/
- lux 2y agoI make music and would be the main contact for several artists, but I'm not a label per se. Would I join separately for each, or will there be a way for each artist to be added under my account or on separate accounts? Thanks!
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- unnamed76ri 2y agoListeners want the convenience of Spotify and don’t care about artists or even know what Bandcamp is, let alone something after Bandcamp. I’m an indie artist and I want things to be different but until you convince people to give up convenience for principles, projects like this won’t mean much.
- 4dregress 2y agoLet the shit music exist on Spotify, if you value your take control of it, throwing it into the void and prostrating yourself on social media begging people to listen to it is not doing yourself or your art justice!
- unnamed76ri 2y agoFair enough. Genuinely asking, how do people who have never heard of you find your music if not through Spotify or social media?
- 4dregress 2y agoPlay shows, build a scene
- unnamed76ri 2y agoAh…so real work then :)
- 4dregress 2y agoYeah and unfortunately it's brutal and pays very little, essentially you make more money from selling merch. So essentially your music is just advertising for you to be able to sell merch LOL!
- 4dregress 2y agoThe burning question I have is: Why do artists feel the need for a platform? The tools are out there to allow you to advertise, sell and distribute your music (I'm not talking about the distribution platforms like distrokid etc, fuck streaming, fuck social media and fuck making content whilst we're at it), why give away control over your art? My model is this: * Make some awesome music * Self host it. Provide means for people to download your music (there are so many methods). * Allow donations via reputable method * Crowd fund for big events like creating physical releases, paying for studio time if you need to. * Play as many gigs as you can/want to do * Again fuck social media You have to be dogged and self determined to work hard in order to for your art to be good, once you put the work in and get yourself out there people will want to hear more after seeing your shows.
- FireInsight 2y agoMost people do not have the means to self-host it. A platform is just make an account, upload the files and cover, set the title, done. The platform might help with getting an audience as well. To self-host you need to have both the technical ability for it and pre-existing audience to use your self-hosted platform.
- 4dregress 2y agoMost people should try harder. Whats the point of even making music if you're gonna pay all these platforms for no one to even to listen to your music. And then you have to compete with the major labels who are buying streams to get their artists in the big playlists. Its a really cleaver system, you have all these services that you pay upfront and then if you actually do get any streams you get like 0.0001% of a cent. Its a con, the only people getting paid are the platforms. If you have to use any platform stick your music on youtube using the lowest quality mp3's and then link back to your own website.
- BizarroLand 2y agoThis is a pretty high ranking jerkass comment. Thousands of people you've never heard of have done exactly what you are talking about before returning to their ordinary life with their dreams unfulfilled. Jerkasses come along and tell other people that they should do the same thing when they have no idea how much passion, time, effort, drive, and focus it takes to do such a thing or how it feels when you realize you've been screaming into the void. Get a following first and then consider making your own website. It's okay to ladle from the mainstream as long as you don't dive in and never surface.
- chrislo 2y agoReally exciting to see this manifesto. There's already some existing co-operative music store/bandcamp alternative projects that are selling music and accepting new artists. https://jam.coop https://jam.coop is the one we are building. We launched last year in response to the sale of bandcamp and the uncertainty we felt in our communities of musicians who depend on Bandcamp for some or part of their living. In contrast to subvert we've decided to take an incremental approach. We're incubating jam inside an existing worker co-operative, building the features that our users need, and working towards an "exit to community" where jam will become a multi-stakeholder co-op owned by artists and workers. I'm also familiar with mirlo and ampwall who are working on similar projects.
- orblivion 2y agoI hope Subvert has thought about making a Mastodon account in addition to X. I would guess a lot of the cooperative minded people will be on there.