"The CEO of Spotify thinks music is made for free and is his to sell, promoted as ‘content’. Please always try to buy records (‘vinyl’), cds, T-Shirts and go to gigs where you can afford to support bands you love."
@reillypascal Also, buy digital copies from Bandcamp, Faircamp, etc., because some of us are releasing straight to digital and not putting out physical copies at all
@reillypascal Any musician here that can confirm, that #Tidal is less bad than #Spotify when it comes to paying musicians? I switched a few months back after reading a similar blog post, but never got an independent confirmation.
Hahahaha! Pluperfect snark — thanks for the memories. What a fresh voice! "Gideon the Ninth" was by far my favorite SF novel of its year (2019).
Thrilled to see Tamsin Muir at Boskone in 2022. Blazingly smart and funny. Though I was disappointed she didn't brandish a sword in each hand and another in her mouth during panels …
Unsurprising, but good to have explicitly laid out:
"The overall effect of looking at my Substack dashboard is 'wow, Substack is really getting me an audience! If I leave Substack, half of my subscription channel will dry up.' It’s clear that this is the impression other writers, the media, and investors are getting as well, because they praise Substack about it all the time."
I already don't like Substack and massively prefer reading things on the writer's own website, and this kind of manipulation to keep people there just confirms my dislike
I did a write up of setting up Webmentions on my site! I had mentioned it earlier, but there was one stumbling block that took me longer to figure out.
Webmentions let me get notified when people share my posts, respond to my comments on other sites, etc., and lets me use my site for a lot of the kinds of interactions I'd otherwise have to do on social media.
"This whole AI cycle was fueled by fantasies, and when people stop falling for them the bubble starts to deflate. In The Guardian, John Naughton recently laid out the five stages of financial bubbles, noting AI is between stages three and four: euphoria and profit-taking."
I'm at an odd place with my personal website. Before Dec. 2023, it was a "professional portfolio" for my compositions. Now that I'm interested in the IndieWeb community, I want to make something more personal. I don't think I want to make two sites, but I do still need a portfolio for my composition work.
I just read @maggie's post on "digital gardens" and I really like that idea. (1/n)
@reillypascal Also if you liked that, you’ll probably also love this collaborative sci-fi project called Cosmic Voyage. It’s all text-based because it’s the web interface to an alternative protocol called Gemini, sort of like old school Gopher. Found out about it through our indieweb buddy @johanna
"'It appears Spotify has returned to attacking the very songwriters who make its business possible,' said David Israelite, the NMPA’s president and CEO [...] 'Spotify’s attempt to radically reduce songwriter payments by reclassifying their music service as an audiobook bundle is a cynical, and potentially unlawful, move [...] We will not stand for their perversion of the settlement we agreed upon in 2022.'"
@vincentbiret the ones I mentioned focus on selling downloads to listeners. Bandcamp is the one I'm most familiar with, and if you buy something there, it also becomes available for unlimited streaming on their app/website.
I also use SoundCloud for my portfolio stuff that I'm not selling, and Jamendo sounds cool for free streaming/licensing purposes.
I've been feeling exactly like this comic, but I got a cheap retro alarm clock and started keeping my phone in the living room at night. It's really nice
@reillypascal oh keeping the phone out of the bedroom is a game changer. Especially for night owl types like me that have a hard time falling asleep.
I skipped the retro alarm clock in favor of setting alarms on my watch because of a tip I picked up from a sleep doctor on how to fall back asleep and defeat insomnia in the middle of the night - never look at the time. Something about that triggers exactly the wrong neurons and avoiding it can lull you back to lala land.
Music platform @mirlo is raising funds to keep running! They let listeners buy directly from musicians, with only 7% going to the platform. They're owned by a worker co-op and open-source too
I really appreciate what they're doing, especially with the instability at Bandcamp
"Ecologists have reoriented their field as a 'crisis discipline,' a field of study that’s not just about learning things but about saving them. We technologists need to do the same. Rewilding the internet connects and grows what people are doing across regulation, standards-setting and new ways of organizing and building infrastructure, to tell a shared story of where we want to go."
I got a new watch! I realized having a basic digital watch would let me leave my phone in my bag more often, which helps me spend less time checking it. Plus this looks extremely 90s and I love it
The sound is pretty involved, so this week I'm talking about just the glitchy looper part. I will make a part 2 soon, to talk about combining the looper with radio noises.