THE VALUE OF STREAMING (THROUGH BANDCAMP ANALYTICS)

In recent months, many artists (such as major/known video game composers) have
expressed their discomfort with the streaming business model, following several policies
of the largest company in the field, and that everyone knows today, Spotify. I wanted to
share all the discomfort that several of the above-mentioned characters expressed so I
followed the subject with special attention on Twitter, and I was especially struck by the
responses that these comments-protests obtained, many of them were the typical "all big
companies suck", others explaining why streaming companies cannot pay more, that their
annual numbers close in losses, etc. Usual words, but many people responded with
sincere alarm, unaware of the poor numbers the artists receive from these companies,
thinking that their Spotify monthly fee was a way to directly support the artists, which
inspired me to write this article.
You know, I'm not going to tell you any secrets here, anyone who goggles "how much do
streaming services pay to artists" will find different articles with methodical analyses and
with more or less concrete numbers about how much an artist receives for each
reproduction, so you might wonder why am I doing this? Because in spite of the above,
there is a lot of misinformation, which leads me to believe that it is not a question of
reading the numbers and statistics, but of really understanding how the model works and
above all, how it affects the artists.
So I was thinking, what would be the best way to demonstrate, or "expose" the real value
of Streaming services? And I came to the conclusion that the best way is to compare it to
another business model, one that has existed for years, in fact, it was the only system of
non-living music consumption until the arrival of Streaming, which is none other than
buying the music product. Either through a cassette, a record, a vinyl with the album of
your favorite band/artist, pay an amount and own it for life.
Of course, this is 2021, and the easiest/commonest way to buy an album is online, which
brings me to another company that comes up a lot in conversations/discussions about the
value of streaming, Bandcamp.
Bandcamp is, to put it simply, the equivalent of the music store where you bought your
albums 10,15, 20 years ago. Which is incredible because due to its business model, it is
very accessible, it is literally free for any artist to upload a single/album, without major
problems, even the same artist can decide the price of his music, where is the profit of
Bandcamp? They take 15% of the profits of your music, in addition to offering a PRO
version for a monthly fee with certain advantages. That's it, it's that simple their business
model, and that simple to learn it, which is especially good for many artists who don't
have much knowledge in the economic part or in the business structure of an artistic
career.
If you are still not clear how Bandcamp works, here is a picture of my personal statistics,
with total number of sales, plays (within the Bandcamp player on the same page) and
followers:

To better understand the value of this data (and of Bandcamp) we must contextualize a
little, I, Tomás Miguel, am a video game composer who started his career in May 2020 (I
say May because it was the first month that I concentrated all my energies on the task,
building a portfolio, optimizing my social media for networking, etc).
The statistics above, correspond to two albums, both being solo works, associated to
video games, but NOT the official soundtrack of a game, these are:
- - Chip dreams, released August 7, 2020, 8bit compilation of pieces inspired by NES
games
- - A Composer's Journey VOL I, released on December 4, 2020, a compilation of
demos or pieces inspired by different video games currently in development with
Developers with whom I established a formal-friendly relationship.
Now, we must take into account that at the time of writing this, I am still an "unknown
composer", I started in May to meet people on twitter, I come from a country where the
GameDev movement does not exist, and my strategy was to gradually meet people, work
on making good music, share it, and repeat the process. Right now, at the time of writing
this, I reached the goal of 1000 followers on Twitter, which is a great goal for me, maybe
you think that this data is not relevant, but keep reading, I promise it is relevant later.
As the numbers above reflect, until today I have achieved 117.25$ in sales, and a total of
1769, not bad huh? It will depend on each one of you, the country where you live at, how
much money you make to determine it.
On the other hand, we have the Streaming model, in theory, it is also simple to explain,
the Streaming companies receive the music from the artists, through "Music Publishers",
which is an intermediary company between the musician and the different services, then,
the Streaming companies pay a certain amount for each Play to the music publishers, and
these finally send it to the artist, sounds simple, right? Well, it really isn't, just having to
choose a Music Publisher is a headache with many of the most popular services receiving
complaints about weird policies or hidden fees that they do not present in their original
plans. But this is not an article about those companies, so how much do they pay for
streaming services?
Below, a report on the pay-per-play of the major companies in 2020, credit to Digital
Music News. “INSERT LINK”

And yes, the numbers on the left are dollars, or rather, pennies, not even that. Streamings
pay a pittance, and as I said above, it's no secret, what I found quite enlightening, and a
curious experiment, was to contrast my bandcamp numbers with, say, Spotify, by far the
most popular service and which currently pays around $0.0037 :)
Let's remember, I had 1769 plays on bandcamp, so 1769 x 0.0037 = $6.54, wow! from
$117.25 to $6.54, ouch.
Or how many Spotify plays would you need to make $117.25? 31,690. more than 30K, I'd
better get the electronics of all my family members, my friends, my partner, that couple of
friends I made on the internet, and they believe in my music (who probably bought my
albums on bandcamp) to loop that album, 24/7, even so I could reach 30K in a given time
where that $117 would make a financial difference in my life? I don't know, I could do the
math too, but at this point I'm already sad.
But seriously, clearly there are many variables and arguments that could be made with the
experiment above. Not all streaming services pay the same, why did the people who
bought my albums on bandcamp, decide to do it? How much work and effort did I put into
promoting them and getting those sales? That's not the point, I don't know from which
country you are reading this, here in my country, today, December 2020, 100$ is still
something (although in a month it won't be, things of living in the worst inflation of the
present and one of the worst in history, but who wants to read about it) that a family of 4
people can live with for a week, even two weeks if you are a person who knows how to
handle money, but in the United States, or Canada, two of the most important countries
in the middle of video games, $100 is probably a day's work, a little less, a little more, but
in the bigger picture, it's nothing, with that you can't even think about living, it's just
absurd, it's almost nothing. And yet, look how difficult it is to produce in Streaming that
amount.
In conclusion: I just released my two albums in the streaming services, if you got here you
might be interested in listening to some of that "Insert link"
What?! Tomás! You just made a nice article, probably very long, about how the Streaming
model is not sustainable for musicians, and now you join the tide?!!!!
Well, yeah, first of all before I give my explanation, we must clarify something painful, we
(music composers) cannot pretend that Streaming services will start to magically raise
their prices, starting because they are companies that in general end up annually with
losses (even though they make a lot of money, yes, they end up in the red), and in fact, as
with any online company/service with a monopoly in a market, they can change their
policies, their prices, their payments, and generally get away with it, in fact, Spotify in the
last two years has gradually lowered the miserable payment it gives to artists, and based
on recent policies, they intend to lower those payments even further, what a joke!).
Second, we cannot expect Bandcamp to replace all streaming services, for the simple
reason that they are completely different business models. Is the Bandcamp model more
honest? Yes, it is better for the musicians, regardless of what stage of their artistic career
they are in? Yes, it is a model that has proven in history to be workable and bring benefits
to all? Yes, but, is it more convenient than streaming services? No.
Comfort is the key term in this arduous debate. The progress of the human being as a
species, technological inventions, all kinds of innovations have always been in favor of
improving the comfort of the human being during his short time on earth, and even
though a great part of us benefit arduously, this also brings its consequences. Much of all
the pollution and polluting products that we create are for our comfort, plastic is the
ultimate expression of comfort.
Streaming is like a plastic way of consuming music, highly comfortable, but not very good
for its environment, starting with those who are directly affected (the artists).
But I am optimistic (always being realistic, of course), and I believe that in the next 20 or
30 years, technological advances will probably be in finding more sustainable and less
harmful ways of the comforts that we are currently lucky enough to have, and I hope that
the same can happen with the whole field of music, especially the economic side that has
always been a taboo, including streaming services.
The logical thing would be to end with a Bandcamp victory cry, start supporting all your
favorite artists, and that kind of thing, and well yes, this is me doing exactly that, but I also
understand that there are people who cannot even afford to spend $10 on the album of
their favorite band or artist, as much as you want to support it with all your heart and
soul, and that's fine, that's the world at work, you shouldn't feel guilty about that, or
about using a streaming service, what I want is to leave everything in the light, and for you
to have your own conclusions, do other research if you want to know more, and consider
all the options!
Finally (this time for real), here is an article (again from Digital Music News) that explains
how Napster (if you saw the above list of streaming companies you will see this name)
demonstrates that a streaming company can be profitable, and at the same time pay a
little more (which in the long run and after countless plays makes a MASSIVE difference)
than Spotify, polluter n.1 Also at the end, he leaves some precious comments on why
Apple Music can also be much less dangerous in the long run than the Swedish giant, and
is also several steps ahead in terms of payment.
At least consider using another streaming service that is less harmful to the environment!