RE: Why My Next EP Will Be On Steem before Spotify
Interesting. I've been looking into a lot of these blockchain-powered music services lately, and as a musician I can clearly see the benefits in terms of monetization and payment schedules. What I fail to see is the benefit from the consumer side of things, what is the actual value of a blockchain-based model compared to say Spotify? The only thing I see right now is 1) a sense of tighter community with the content creators, and 2) the visualization of actually paying for music consumption. On every other parameter a non-blockchain experience seem to be superior now and in the future - in terms of catalog, speed and curation. You are mentioning releasing your EP on Steem before everywhere else. This makes sense to me to please a certain community and maybe bring more people to the service, but for the average consumer or music fan I don't think windowing is a good way to go. It's not that different from Jay-Z releasing exclusively on Tidal. A move that lead to the album being illegally downloaded just under a million times in the first 72 hours. This puts us back to square one. I'd like to hear your thoughts on this, and I'm looking forward to try your service :-)
You are totally right. The benefit to the consumer needs to be a closer relationship with the artist where they can also be rewarded when they join in the discussion.
The blockchain equivalent to Spotify (note @Steemsongs is more like the iTunes store) will offer faster and larger payments to artists, as well as faster and larger payments to record labels. The record labels being paid more is key to an equivalent service taking off.
The key to @steemsongs success will be in offering something different, ideally I'd like to make it much more curated. Also Steemsongs will allow Steemit users (500k currently) somewhere to spend their Steem/SBD as oppose to cashing out immediately. One gripe I have with Steemit is the complete lack of monetisation. Why can't we pay SBD/Steem to upgrade our accounts, to unlock private messaging... and why aren't Steemit INC using their stake for good instead of delegating to repeat posters?
The project remains a way for me to combine two things that I love: music and blockchain. I don't know where it will go, but hopefully you'll come along for the ride.
I up voted your reply because to be honest I'm so focused in the benefits of Steemit, sometimes I fail to be my own devils advocate. I can only assume that @thisisbenbrick is releasing his EP here first, indeed in some minor part, to appeal to the Steemit community. However, underlying this [assumed] intention there is also as you stated the desire to bring new users to the platform. All the while excepting the risk that a few stubborn people might pirate his content just because they don't want to join a new platform to listen to one artist. My question to you is do you think that eventually as people are brought on to Steemit there could be an entire facet to Steemit that is in itself as powerful, or from a consumer standpoint, as user friendly as Spotify?
Of course there could. But it requires Steemit INC being behind the project. The blockchain is way faster than all the competitors.. it's the perfect place for new decentralised projects.
If you're asking if Steemit itself could be as user-friendly as Spotify - I think not. But it's also comparing two completely different things. My point was just that I don't think blockchain is a solution to everything, and for music fans I fail to see the big incentives to switch to a blockchain-based model.
One thing I forgot to mention was that a service like Musicoin has curation awards not unlike Steemit on their roadmap. This could give some listeners a economic sentiment for creating and sharing playlists, but I still believe it will be a select few.
i don't know guys, i get off the most when I perform live. I agree that steemit is great at payouts but it doesn't open too many doors to great shows, and nothing beats that :)
I agree. I've been playing guitar for over 20 years. Been in a couple bands but never cared to pursue it as a career. I probably wasn't good enough anyway. I have to chime in on the AI creation of music. There is already so much sampling and 'fake' instruments in modern music that I can barely listen to new material. Music is all about emotion and feeling, for me. You can program a machine to do something, play a series of notes, beats, whatever. But without the human emotion, It's like listening to the traffic or watching commercials on TV.
I would love to hear a computer improvise a blues guitar solo and then compare it to Joe Bonamassa.
Maybe we will soon be able to play live together online. We can’t yet because of the delay, and feedback, etc. But we’re heading there. Though, I believe live (in person) will still be better because of the energy created between the other musicians, singers, and listeners.
how about a VR show? that would be tight haha!
I think the first step is to provide something for Steemit users and build a community around this.