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Ask HN: Feedback on this proposed funding model for supporting musicians?

1 pointrglullis10 comments

For context: I recently set up a Funkwhale[0] instance [1] for Communick subscribers, where people can upload their music collection, stream on mobile/web and share with their friends. That's useful already and can be thought of as a replacement to the original Google Play Music, but I guess that those with large music collections will either just play from their dedicated devices or self-host a service like Navidrome.

So I'd like to make my instance a bit more interesting by building tools for (a) musicians wishing to connect with their audience and use the space to showcase their own work and (b) people who want to support independent musicians but don't want to commit paying a few dollars every month to lots of different people - the main complaint about Patreon after all is that those little contributions end up amounting to a lot of money.

In terms of funding, what I'd like to do as a backer would be to set up a fixed monthly budget (say $10-$25 per month) and then I could just split this between all the artists that are enrolled in the platform, however I want. I might decide to get 100% of my budget and give to one artist, or I might choose to give 10% to one and 1% to 90 other musicians. In the end of the month, the system would tally up everyone's contributions and make the payout accordingly.

I wouldn't even have to take a cut of these donations, because my business model already has revenue by simply providing the service.

Is this something that you'd see yourself using? I know that Bandcamp is king in this space, but with the recent changes maybe there is an opportunity to get more artists and supporters looking to this model.

[0] https://funkwhale.audio

[1] https://communick.stream

--- Edit: This $10-20 a month I am referring to would be an optional amount that users of my service could allocate directly to musicians that they want to support. Those that just want to listen to their music collection would not need to pay anything more besides the base "music hosting" service, which costs (at the moment) just $29/year.

The people you need to speak most are the musicians, not the listeners; nobody's going to be putting $20 into a website if there's no music there to listen to, so you need to court the people who'll be providing the music most of all. Will this model work for them?

> nobody's going to be putting $20 into a website if there's no music there to listen to,

Looks like I wasn't clear. Funkwhale works primarily as a "music locker" like the original Google Play Music. It can be described as "Navidrome + social features". Most of the music that will be available to you is the one you bring yourself, from your collection. The secondary use case is that you can share your playlists with your friends, and the tertiary case is that you can create "broadcast channels" for the music that you create and want to make available for other people.

With this in mind, the primary service I offer is "music streaming" (like Spotify/Apple Music/Tidal...) but merely "music file hosting". This primary service is available for $29/month (https://communick.com/packages/access)

The "$10-20" a month that I'm talking about would be an extra feature, for people that want to support musicians directly. They would be deciding how much they want to add, and 100% of that money (minus processing fees) could go to the musicians they want to support.

It would be the same idea as Patreon, except it's the backers that decide how much they want to give to each creator.

Does this make more sense?

Right - but you still gotta talk to the musicians if this side feature is going to have any traction. Again, nobody's putting money in (whether as the main draw, or a side thing) if there's nothing to listen to, and there won't be if the musicians you'd like to court don't like the deal being offered.

I still don't agree with the "there's nothing to listen to". Even now with a handful of users, I already uploaded some music to my personal library and shared some playlists with other contacts.

In any case, I do agree that talking with musicians is also important. I just think this is a chicken-and-egg problem, so both sides of the market need to show interest in the model.

> Even now with a handful of users, I already uploaded some music to my personal library and shared some playlists with other contacts.

Your own personal music that you've created? Cool, but you're one person who also happens to be running this project. That's not the basis for a business decision.

Someone else's music? That's just sharing songs online, and while I'm fine with people sailing the seas, charging for the privilege doesn't seem right to me.

> Your own personal music that you've created?

Noooooooo. I mean music collection. mp3 and flacs that I acquired throughout the years. I can upload it, put it on my online library and share with my friends. They, in turn, can share their collection with me. And no, it is not piracy, because you are not making it publicly available, totally fair use.

Can you please take a look at the website to see how it works? Where am I missing you?

> And no, it is not piracy, because you are not making it publicly available, totally fair use.

I don't think that's how that works. If you're sharing a bunch of mp3's of music you've purchased or pirated to people - and especially if you're about to build some way for people to pay you for the privilege - you're going to need legal advice more than you need business advice, i'd wager.

> and especially if you're about to build some way for people to pay you for the privilege

Again: it seems you are conflating two separate things. I'm charging for hosting the files that customers already have, not by giving them access to copyrighted content. It's no different than the now-defunct "music locker" services like Google Music Play and Amazon Music Storage.

The "playlist sharing" functionality is only meant to be used by people who are directly connected. If someone puts copyrighted content in a public list, anyone can see, report it and Funkwhale already has provisions for admins to moderate/remove the content.

At $10-25 a month, you’re competing with Spotify, Apple Music and Pandora. Based on cost alone I think it’s a non-starter.

No, these values are just examples. If someone just wants to put $5/month, they could.

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