Maybe I´m missing something, but as far as I know, bandcamp is not a streaming service. You can buy songs, and if you bought them, you can stream them, but still, if you want to mix them with you other music you still need to download them and use your own solution to play it. Also bigger names are not on there. So why is bandcamp a solution?
Don´t get me wrong, bandcamp is a great site for smaller artists. But I don´t see how it will help me. Only as option to buy music when I decide not to use a streaming service.
Fair enough! Depends what you're into of course but I have found many older, established artists on the platform. The kind of artists you'd expect to be exclusively beholden to major corporate record labels. Bandcamp is 100% a streaming service, but that's just one part of the service it offers. Bandcamp allows you to make mixed playlists from your purchased titles that you can stream.
I think the site's operational model is the minimum required to support music creation as a career for human beings. Spotify cannot support any artist that doesn't already have a following of millions. Whereas Bandcamp can provide a living income to an artist with a following of about a thousand up. In this way Spotify and co are a rip-off to both consumers and creators. The monthly cost is low for the consumer, sure, but this is at the expense of the economic future of the industry it depends upon.
Any distribution platform that damages the viablity of the product it sells in the process of providing that product to it's customers is a problem, in my opinion.
Yes I had another look and there are quite some well known artists indeed. And I guess it makes sense, because it can only suppliment there revenue. Sadly some others are still missing.
Oke, let me clearify and if I'm wrong, then please correct me. But you get a few free (preview) streams for a song, after that you have to buy it. An artist can increase the free views for a song. But you have to buy it before you can stream it. That is why I don´t really call it a streaming service. But more place where you can buy the songs and if you have bought them, you can stream them.
If I could upload music I already have, I would maybe consider it as a streaming service (and if this is possible, please let me know, but it wouldn't make sense for them to do, because it would be quite costly for them)
So with bandcamp I still need to run my own music server, or buy music I own again. Which wouldn´t be fun if I have to start from zero again, just to be able to use their service, and missing some artists that I want to listen to.
So I see it as a place where I can buy music, and probably one of the better ones for the artist. But not as a (viable) streaming service for me.
I don´t know if I totally agree on that what bandcamp is doing is only the minimum required. And how many artists that aren´t payed well (all services together), would have a sustainable career before the music streaming era. I do agree that the way spotify does things isn´t viable for artists.
Sad thing is that I don´t know how much spotify is to blame. And how much is record/music labels. I'm really curious how a system where your money only goes to the artist you listen to would pan out. But with the grip labels have on streaming services, I don´t know if we will ever find out.