The Van: Building a more artist-friendly streaming service

There’s a new streaming service in town and this one – The Van – is hoping to stand out from the competition by prioritizing artist compensation over the company’s bottom line.

Guest post by James Shotwell of Haulix

The Van hopes to separate itself from its streaming competitors by emphasizing artist compensation over company revenue.

The van is a new worldwide music streaming platform exclusively for indie artists & labels, that enables & encourages listeners to support artists by compensating them directly. The platform encourages bands to make a contribution to the artists they enjoy without requiring a subscription fee or purchase minimum. It is perhaps the first streaming platform to truly place talent before its own interests, and it’s now available worldwide.

For listeners, the van removes the usual commitments & requirements that impede their ability to compensate artists flexibly, equitably and directly. For artists, it offers another means by which to monetize their creative work, on a non-exclusive basis, free of platform fees — while allowing them to upload & manage their music independently (without third-party distributors).

PayPal powers all transactions, and U.S. listeners on the mobile site can make contributions using Venmo. Funds from the artist’s share of a support transaction are deposited into their PayPal account immediately, subject to no holding period.

BUT. There is a small catch.

Artists and labels are personally invited and approved by The Van admin. Curation is managed by human programmers highlighting a limited array of releases at any one time and foregoing the use of algorithms that tend to filter out as much great music as they corral.

Does the world need another streaming service? It’s effortless to say that it does not. After all, the vast majority of all recorded music is available on every platform, and the number of unique benefits any platform can offer is limited.

The world needs a streaming service that emphasizes the importance of compensating artists instead of celebrating algorithms. Musicians worldwide are unhappy with how Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon music compensate talent. These corporations are making billions while artists make fractions of a cent, and no amount of picketing or complaining online seems to convince those in power to change their methods. The Van may not prove to be a perfect solution, but it is attempting to find better ways of compensating artists and highlighting their talent. That’s better than nothing.

James Shotwell is the Director of Customer Engagement at Haulix and host of the company’s podcast, Inside Music. He is also a public speaker known for promoting careers in the entertainment industry, as well as an entertainment journalist with over a decade of experience. His bylines include Rolling Stone, Alternative Press, Substream Magazine, Nu Sound, and Under The Gun Review, among other popular outlets.