Bandcamp Opens Patreon-Like Artist Subscriptions To All
Ongoing sustainable income is the goal of every working musician. One solution, which got a great deal of attention last year, is based on the patronage model enabled by startups like Patreon which ask fans to support their favorite artists on an ongoing basis. Now, Bandcamp is offering its own integrated artist subscription platform
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After more than a year of testing, direct to fan commerce platform Bandcamp has opened Artists Subscriptions to all users. Rabbit Rabbit, The Disney Dish, and Jim Guthrie are among the initial artists using the service to collect monthly contributions from fans in exchange for access to music, videos, tickets and exclusive offers.
Bandcamp Artist Subscriptions offer monthly and yearly subscription options, as well as multiple membership tiers. Artist are given total control of what they offer and can message subscribers directly.
A video overview:
Find more info here.
It’ll never work. They expect people to pay an artist whatever a month and pay for apple and spotify? This also limits the overall flow of money flowing to other purchases of music goods. If anything, it could be helpful for a handful of major indie artists but 99% of every artist on bandcamp has a harder time being discovered let alone needing to worry about now to get people to auto pay them every month. Sounds better on paper than in real life.
I hear you, brother! I hate it when the money I can spend on purchases of music goods is limited by my purchases of music goods. Also, when I subscribe to Spotify or Apple Music, I pretty much expect to never have to support independent musicians again!
The world is big. Fortunately, there’s always people who prefer to directly support their favorite artists, instead of spending money in the all-you-can listen services (that shouldn’t even exist in the first place!)
Haha, I think Slim said it better than I could hope to. But I can add that, as a small-scale independent musician myself, having Patreon and services like Patreon has been a God-send for me. I am now 100% supported by patrons from around the world, and I am NOT a major indie artist by any means! Check it out, this works: http://patreon.com/natemaingard.
It’s more about having an active and supportive community, and then allowing them to support what you do.
So, sorry, but you’re wrong: IT IS WORKING.
So glad to see Bandcamp moving this direction. Nate’s right, it is working, though it might seem counter intuitive at first. The main thing to remember is that social capital is super valuable, but we don’t usually appreciate its value. In the case of Bandcamp, though, I do wonder if it can be competitive when it takes a 10% larger cut than Patreon? ~ Andrew (http://www.independentiq.com)