Tuesday, February 2, 2016

explanation of things...

new channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCinQSeEtF0vSN1XVhQGfwKA

i just want to clarify that the reason i've set these videos to private is that the channel was not directing traffic to bandcamp as well as i hoped it would.

as a musician, trying to figure out how to exist in a world of streaming media is a delicate balance. streaming may be good for consumers, but it is not good for artists.

i do not care what is good for consumers. this all requires a little give and take, though - of course. in order for it to make sense for me to have my music on youtube, i need to be getting sales at bandcamp. for a musician, youtube is not a business model - it is an advertising platform. and, as an advertising platform, this approach is not working, largely because people are misinterpreting what it is.

see, people are interpreting this as the place where a product is published. they think i should get paid through ad revenue. it is this misunderstanding that is the core of the problem. if people understood that the youtube video is the ad for the product, and the product is available by clicking through the links, the system would work as intended.

so, what i've done is change my advertising delivery to something that:

(1) does not give away too much of my actual product for free.
(2) can act as a product, itself.

this video will not be up forever. rather, this site will go completely quiet within a few weeks - once i've archived and deleted all of the comments. the site will then relaunch within 4-6 months in the context of a historical based-alternate reality. but, most of the uploads will only be samples.

for the musician, youtube is still an experiment. and, i've deduced that it's a failed one.

and, for the inevitable "unsubbed" response, let me ask you this:

how many records did you buy?

i'm going to guess that you didn't buy any. so, why, exactly, do you think i want you to subscribe, or care that you've unsubbed?

you may want to note that i actually never asked you to subscribe in the first place. what i did ask you to do was go to my bandcamp site.

see, this is exactly the problem: you think i want you to subscribe. you think i want your views. no. these things are of precisely zero value. they're numbers on a screen that cannot be converted into anything tangible.

what i want is for you to go to my store and buy my records. and, if you don't want to do that, you can kindly fuck off.