Can I play devil’s advocate a little bit here, because I was really unaware that this ever worked for anything except indie artists on Bandcamp. So Bandcamp works for them or for discovering new music obviously.
I didn’t know artists ever sold digital music on their websites, but that does make sense, so I checked - if I google Taylor Swift and go to her website, there it is, digital music purchase. Great.
I went to U2’s website, and the only music I can buy there is vinyl. I don’t want vinyl, I want digital. You can buy merch, but I’m after music, not merch. Looking further, there’s all sorts of galleries and information about each album and song, but you still can’t buy the music.
Other mainstream artists I googled didn’t even go that far. Googling them brought up a wikipedia link, social media links, tours. All stuff I don’t want. Now your list has “contact artist via social media” - setting aside the fact that it’s unlikely a popular mainstream artist will even reply to anyone at all about anything, this is a real point of friction. I don’t want to have to contact an artist to find out some alternative way to get their music. If I’m buying something online, there needs to be some way to buy it online and ready to go. If we have to wait a couple of days or weeks for a reply that may or may not come - the process failed.
If I had to guess, they would probably say something like “it’s on spotify”.
So yes it probably is a supplier problem, but it seems to me that this is happening for the majority of popular artists if a majority of music people like is mainstream. I assume if you like the majority of indie music then that’s probably not the case.
helenslunch@feddit.nl 8 months ago
I’ve never seen an artist on Bandcamp that I actually recognize.
Telling anyone to “just Google it” is proof that you have no intention of a good faith discussion.
acastcandream@beehaw.org 8 months ago
How on earth you could read what they wrote and say it’s in bad faith means either A) you don’t know what that term means or B) it’s become so diluted and repeated that it’s lost all meaning. Perhaps both idk.
helenslunch@feddit.nl 8 months ago
You don’t know what you’re talking about.
Kissaki@beehaw.org 8 months ago
Please elaborate. Because they’re right, and you and the commenter you are defending are wrong. And they reasoned in what way.
sunbunman@lemm.ee 8 months ago
Bandcamp is good for indie artists and if you want to discover new artists. I’ve found quite a few diamonds in the rough on there. A surprising amount of metal / punk artists sell via Bandcamp if you’re into that.
How is 'just Google it" not a valid option? This is literally how you can find 99% of all problems about the internet especially for finding legally where to buy digital products within the first few websites. You what is good for business when you’re trying to sell a product? Making sure its one of the first few, if not the first choice the customer gets when looking at the default search engine.
Moving on from that I’m guessing getting in contact with the artist is not an option? Y’know the other 2 points?
renard_roux@beehaw.org 8 months ago
Are you sure you responded to the correct comment? 🤔