Too Many Platforms for Musicians, Too Little Traction

As an unsigned musician, I prefer musician-centric platforms. However, they’ve proliferated so much that it’s hard to choose between them.

Platforms Galore

Given how suddenly musician resources can go rogue or completely disappear, I am “twice shy” about joining another platform. I’ve written before about needing to leave such platforms that no longer deliver. And don’t even get me started about the streaming services. They are anything but a “service” when it comes to unsigned musicians.

Alongside the commercial platforms (Apple Music, Tidal, etc.), the first of the musician-based or community-based music platforms was BandCamp. Even that has become too commercial for many after multiple buy-outs.

Still, BandCamp’s longevity alone makes the community there difficult to ignore. At the same time, their practices have sent some musicians and fans flocking to other platforms as they rise up.

The Devil’s In The Details

Examples of community-based music services are too numerous to mention them all. A few that have caught my interest include Mirlo.Space, Bandwagon.FM, and Subvert.FM. Literally, there are dozens of others, but I don’t have the time to pursue them all, so – for the moment – I’m sticking with these. (I have tried at least half dozen others including ampwall and stagedive. None of these came close for a variety of reasons.)

Among these, Subvert is a most recent addition. (They only became a public site in recent weeks as of this writing.) I’ve been building up my presence on their platform. Their thoughtful system seems quite thorough. The downside is that it takes a while to populate a “new” release. Time will tell if they can become a place to build community for musicians.

Meanwhile, the federated model continues to be an interesting option. Some people only know this as Mastodon, but that’s just the tip of the federated iceberg. PeerTube, FairCamp, and other federated platforms are extending this concept. It certainly defies the centralized commercial model.

Platforms of Tomorrow

One of the biggest questions for me is: will these platforms last? I’ve seen so many useful services for musicians come and go. It only makes it more difficult if we become reliant on one system only to have it disappear.

And a significant concern is that if more of these platforms continue to appear, the musician base will be dispersed and watered-down across them all. This leaves none of them with enough fan focus to be helpful.

The future for unsigned musicians looks simultaneously bright and highly questionable. (For example, I haven’t talked about the dangers of AI at all in this post. This is another threat to all music services.) As always, let’s focus on creating relationships. That is the best possible future I can imagine.