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Comment by Lacerda69 | Hacker News Reader

I could not agree more. If Bandcamp actually implodes I would have no idea where to buy music. I want to buy directly fron the artists; everything else feels tainted.

Is there any alternative?

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Buy a vinyl album from artists who sell such things, which will get them far more, per album sold, than just about anything else. Your ability to play vinyl is irrelevant here, and all I'll ask is that you store it reasonably (upright, in a cool place, sealed if you're not going to play it) for future use, since they last "about forever" when well taken care of.

Then obtain the music in some lossless form. FLAC download from the usual sources, used CD on eBay into the ripper, etc.

Though I've also debated just starting to mail checks in envelopes to artists I want to directly support.

It's certainly more annoying than something like BandCamp. But given how "literally everything useful on the internet" either turns into a behavioral surplus vampire or dies (gets killed off), I don't have any better ideas either.

The issue of course is Bandcamp is the method most artists use to sell vinyl to fans who can’t make it to their live shows. I assume the pandemic led many to support their favorite artists through Bandcamp, but Bandcamp planned for a new reality that was really just pandemic-induced. The issue is Bandcamp enables smaller artists to sell like bigger artists and anything like your “mail a check” solution is so far from the kind of support Bandcamp could provide. I’m more interested in thinking about what “sustainable business model Bandcamp is” than going back to 1990s music industry.

There's nothing unsustainable about bandcamp, it was bought by a company that immediately sold it to another company that was a competitor. It being run into the ground after such a transaction is quite unsurprising.

> The following year, after massively bigging up the business, they sold it to Songtradr

Does 'bigging up the business' here mean loading it up with technical debt and real debt? Enquiring minds would like to know etc.

I want a comprehensive directory of all indie/underground music where I can buy physical or digital copies of the music directly from the artist. I need to know that 80%+ of the money goes to the artist.

Is there any other platform than bandcamp that offers this?

You can also find artists that do live streams and directly pay them.

Buy merch, see shows, etc.

sure but not every artist offers this and its much harder to find the individual channels vs having one big index.

But if worst comes to worst that will be the alternative for the time being I guess

Vinyl won't get the most to the artist per dollar spent though. Most of the revenue from vinyl goes to people involved in the production and distribution of the physical record.

> I've also debated just starting to mail checks in envelopes

What about downloading music normally and buying merch?

On...Bandcamp? Which is what most indie artists use to sell?

Most of the CDs I've bought online in the last few years have been through Bandcamp. It was convenient to get the FLAC immediately after ordering, and the CD soon after.

Usually, if you buy a vinyl, the artist will include a download link for digital files of your choice - I like buying music this way because the vinyl helps the artist, and in turn the artist usually will give you lossless compressed files direct from mastering.

There is no universe in which I "mail checks" (sic) to anyone. I wouldn't even know how to obtain a chequebook, I doubt my bank issues them. It's not 1995 anymore.

55% of Americans wrote a check last year.[0]

I get being adamant, and I couldn't agree more -- i'd have to be really convinced to mail a check, but let's not act like it's unheard of.

[0]:https://finance.yahoo.com/news/almost-half-americans-not-wri...

I write checks a couple times monthly to a housekeeper and other service people and my bank writes a few more. Writing a check is higher friction than other payment schemes but it’s pretty routine in the US.

But it's absolutely plummeting:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/09/15/paper-che...

Rates of check-writing have been falling relatively linearly since 1995, and at the current rate it will drop to zero by around 2030.

Want to make a bet that it's not zero by 2030?

I dunno... I mean, a lot of things decrease but don't go completely extinct, like writing with fountain pens.

But check-writing requires institutions to support it. At some point they're going to pull the plug. Kind of how analog broadcast TV ended in 2009.

2030 is certainly too soon, as the decrease will slow at some point, but I'd absolutely bet money that physical writing of personal checks is no longer supported in the US by 2040. With a decline of usage, the costs of fraud are going to outweigh their benefits. (And we can finally go back to sidewalk mailboxes with normal-size openings that you can drop small packages in, since mailbox-fishing won't have a target anymore.)

Cashier's checks will stick around though, since they fulfill a different purpose. And printed business checks for things like account refunds will persist as well. But printed checks like these aren't subject to the levels of fraud personal ones are, and can easily be made even more secure.

In general, the first paycheck from a new employer is usually an actual paper check, because they want you to get your 1st payment before the direct deposit is set up.

I've even been given a pro-rated paper check from the accounting department on the first day (as part of onboarding), for 1st day wages, as soon as I get into the office and shown to my desk/work area.

It's an act of good will because they are paying you for work you did on your first day (instead of cheating you to say "we'll pay you when everything gets set up", they are upfront with the "day worked deserves fair wage" principle)

Your spelling of the word “chequebook” makes me think you aren’t American, so it could be a cultural thing but checks are readily available and still somewhat commonly used for large purchases and rent payments in my experience.

Qobuz has a good web store full of full-res releases, but it's more oriented towards label releases. Bandcamp is still superior when it comes to brand new indie releases. Hopefully someone will fill the vacuum if Bandcamp goes away.

https://www.qobuz.com/us-en/discover

It looks like with Qobuz you only get one chance to download your purchased downloads? If you lose the files there's no way to download them again?

Their FAQ says you can download again your purchases: https://help.qobuz.com/en/articles/10166-can-i-re-download-m...

The terms of services only say that "The offer to Download is currently unavailable in Latin American countries and in Portugal." It doesn’t give more details.

The store is confusing though. You can buy a "CD quality" album for $10 but there also is a "hi-fi 192" version for $20 without explaining what hi-fi is.

> Proxies and VPNs not allowed

No Qobuz for me it seems. They don’t want my money for some reason.

They also fairly recently changed things so you need to install a downloader app in order to download more than one album track at once. That's quite aggravating. I'm not installing some shitty app but there isn't a Linux version either, FWIW.

I have historically bought a lot of music, don't like MP3s, and don't want to collect CDs anymore that I just rip to digital. Qobuz and Bandcamp age the only services I know that offer FLAC.

I've mostly stuck to Bandcamp but Qobuz has quite a few releases that don't appear on Bandcamp (probably because of certain labels).

Also they spam you (daily) even if you ask them not to. Might be the thing where you have to unsubscribe from the email even though your account settings told them not to send you email (I think it stopped after I did that, although who knows if it will start up again at some point).

7digital was the other one but of course they are also now owned by the same company that owns Bandcamp (and have the annoying regional restrictions, possibly Qobuz does as well). Hopefully they will get their act together. The lack of regional restrictions (at least in most cases) is one of the best parts of Bandcamp.

If you happen to be interested in classical music there are several that sell FLAC (not sure how good they are). I think there are some DJ focused stores that sell FLAC as well, although with limited selection I think.

> there isn't a Linux version

thankfully there are unofficial Qobuz downloaders for linux, have a browse on github.

I think Itch.io has a decent chance of picking up where Bandcamp left off. Out of the box it doesn't have a media player to preview singles on an album, but someone created a media player that you can add to an itch page to provide said support

github: https://github.com/torcado194/scritch-player demo: https://keestak.itch.io/heck-deck-ost

I bought a CD from an artist (The Burning Leaves) through Bandcamp. Even though the artist lives, like 500m from me and I could have just asked her. Just to give Bandcamp my business and their cut to help them along (also it would have been weird).

I've discovered so much through Bandcamp that I would have otherwise not known about, and bought so much I otherwise would have pirated.

I think it's the help the platform help the artist thing that gets me. It means nothing in the end.

How do you discover stuff through bandcamp? The follow feed? Their front page articles? Search?

I tend to go digging through the artist you might like list on pages of music I’ve purchased. It’s not guaranteed I’ll stumble across something, but I do tend to find other artists I end up purchasing from.

The Bandcamp weekly podcast (now bandcamp radio) was (is?) great for discovery.

yes!

Lots of indie musicians are on small labels and often multiple small labels so looking at the other artists on the same labels is often a good method (link usually pops up in the upper left corner).

I'm building that functionality into https://giraf.app, and will set the fees as low as possible (aiming for a flat 4%, compared to Bandcamp's 15% on digital items and 10% on physical items). My goal is for Giraf to help artists by maximizing how much they take home, and by giving them a platform for building a unique kind of relationship with their fans, around their interests in music, film, books, visual art, and other forms of culture.

I'm yet to try https://gumroad.com/ but have seen some producers move to after attracting copyright complaints on Bandcamp.

7digital? Except... they're owned by the same company.

bleep and boomkat are good for electronic music.

they are good true. but I always wondered if they pay artist as well as Bandcamp does. There is probably some info online but it seemed to me that artists do prefer bandcamp, so I figured they get a better deal there

I assume artists do get a bigger cut on Bandcamp but unfortunately it looks like Bandcamp is in dire straits.

So I'm doing my best to support the remaining independent music stores.

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