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Fediverse @lemmy.world
Sean Tilley @lemmy.world

Bandwagon is Bringing Music Sales to the Fediverse

An open source, self-hostable music platform will soon allow people on the Fediverse to buy music and support artists. Here's why it's a big deal.

20 comments

  • the flagship instance of Bandwagon.fm will be taking 0% of any money musicians make.

    Good stuff.

    To support development, Bandwagon’s flagship instance will be offering a $10 per month Premier plan that allows musicians to sell their music and offer their tracks at a higher bit-rate, among other features.

    So they will take 0% of money, except a flat fee of €10 every month in order to be allowed to sell music at all? This seems a bit more problematic, as smaller artists would lose money every month by trying to position themselves in the market.

    I like the business model of selling subscriptions to the artists but giving them 100% of proceedings quite a lot, but it would be nice if they for example only had to pay a monthly fee once sales surpassed €10, or if they could sell a limited amount of tracks for free in order to test the waters before putting all their music out for sale.

    Writing this comment listening to @torstentorsten@bandwagon.fm by the way. Recommended to anyone interested in German singer/songwriter music. Who isn't.

    • You can consider using flagship instance as a way to fund the development. It's not like they force you to use flagship instance.

      There always third-party instance or self-host as an option.

      I've seen multiple fediverse project dead before arrival, as the dev working on other job(s) for living. Heck, that's also the same reason why most of fediverse project are from the West, a lot of people who lives in a country with low paygrade (including me) are not able to dedicate their time for FOSS project.

    • as smaller artists would lose money every month by trying to position themselves in the market.

      They are not "losing money", they are making use of the service anyway. Any type of venture you are building incurs costs and risks, why should it be different for someone that is running an online presence?

      If the developers of bandwagon were to carving exceptions for other users, pretty soon they would be taking the risks themselves of dealing with loss-leaders customers and would have to find other ways to make up for it. 10€/month is an absolute bargain for a service that will provide you a storefront and a distribution channel that can reach anyone in the world and demands absolutely nothing in return from you.

      • I wouldn't say it's a bargain for the artist when there's plenty of services that offer that for free.

        From a purely money perspective a small artist would probably lose money here while it may earn money in places like Tidal, which have much more audience.

        Let's not lie people. It's not a bargain. $10 a month is a lot for that service. Maybe from a "San Francisco" or other rich American city that is Pocket change, but from most of the world $10 a month is a considerable expense.

        Other thing is if you want to morally support ot because you really like that model for whatever reason.

        To be honest, I don't much see the point. Of you are going for the complicated route (aka not using established platforms) are you are even considering self hosting, putting out your own website to sell music is easier and cheaper. And it's actually very common for artists to have their own website. You can find static hosting for a few bucks.

      • Fair enough. But musicians are not really "any type of venture".

        Bandwagon is already taking on a risk by hosting music for free for listening. If they could find ways in which both them and the artists could profit from music published on the platform that lacks the commercial potential to justify a €10 subscription, this would be a win/win. Considering that it seems they are already hosting the music for free.

20 comments