Can this community tell me what alternatives exist? What I really want is for a business to let me pay an amount of my choosing, and send my money to artists based on my engagement.
100%
all i care about is that the mlney actually ends up in the pockets of artists.
if bandcamp disappears there needs to be some alternative to pay artists.
Spotify and the like are predators IMO.
Not really - there are a few, but there's no guarantee that they won't be bought out and enshitificaton will ensue
Oh, if it isn't the joys of the capitalist cycle... Let the enshitification begin.
nothing to do with capitalism. people just don't want to directly pay for music
Interesting thought. What is this based on?
I mean, why would people just not want to directly pay for the music that they enjoy?
Are you serious? A ton of people will just take anything for free that isn’t nailed down.
Yeah, I'm serious. Lots of people were happy throwing money directly at the people who were making the music they enjoyed, either through live jigs or Bandcamp.
this one absolutely is though - people were happy using bandcamp to directly pay for music but the owners got greedy and sold the site
A significant minority do. Bandcamp cleared $20 million in profit in 2022: