[vintermann]

They do. Bandcamp is a thing, and it's pretty much that, minus a fee for the infrastructure.

But it's not a panacea. An old classmate of mine who's a decently successful Jazz artist now (by Jazz artist standard), had scammers upload her album to Bandcamp without her knowledge. They defrauded a lot of money from her actual fans, probably more than she ever made on Spotify.

[Workaccount2]

Ironically part of signing onto a label is providing protection from stuff like this.

[vintermann]

It's maybe what it's supposed to do, but her label didn't.

[ethbr1]

* Bandcamp, now owned by Songtradr, that promptly fired half its employees.

[kristianbrigman]

As bad as this is...as this thread points out, more of the money needs to go to artists, and supporting fewer employees should let them do this.

[ethbr1]

As long as it remains a viable platform. Hopefully the cuts weren't a "gut because we want to run this down on life support" move.

[cqqxo4zV46cp]

Classic Hacker News. “Companies shouldn’t spend money, except if it’s on developers!”

[freedomben]

Was your classmate already on Bandcamp?

[vintermann]

Yes, through the record company.