Bandcamp co-founder Ethan Diamond outlines his expectations for the post-pandemic live music industry amid promoter consolidation.
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Artists report Bandcamp revenue is orders of magnitude above streaming services
“We hear all the time, mostly through Twitter, that, you know, the money that artists make through Bandcamp is orders of magnitude bigger than what they're making from streaming services that it's how they're, you know, paying rent and getting equipment and buy…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Early Bandcamp sales converted from 'torrent' and 'free MP3' search queries
“And we found again, 2008, 2009. So we, what we were competing with, right, as you said, was like LimeWire. Right. Hook share and stuff like that. So we looked at those search terms and it was the name of an album plus the word torrent or the name of an artist …”
Disclosure
Bandcamp deliberately avoids pursuing hypergrowth, scale, IPOs, or acquisitions
“No, they don't. No, I mean, we're really just, I focused on our mission of serving artists. That's what inspires me. That's what I, you know, what I get excited about doing And I would say the company has grown and succeeded more as a side effect of focusing o…”
Insight
Paid transactions create more meaningful online community participation than free likes
“You don't, you know, click a like button or a heart to add something to a collection. You have, you transact, right, to create a collection, and that gives the collection so much more meaning, right, because you actually spent a limited resource, right, your m…”
Assertion Not yet assessed · timeframe Apr 2021
The first Bandcamp Friday generated 15 times normal Friday sales
“It was it was about 15 times our normal Friday sales, which for the systems team, for support, for developers, it was a really big effort to keep the site running and have it keep up with all of that.”
Assertion Supported
Fans paid artists $50 million across the first 11 Bandcamp Fridays
“We have another one tomorrow, but we've had 11 since then, and just on those days, fans have paid artists fifty million dollars.”