I love to stream music. I love artists that make music. I want them to be able to live off what they make.

Here are some of my favourite music-streaming platforms:

SoundCloud

SoundCloud: use an artist-centric payment model. In 2023 they turned profitable, which is something Spotify have not achieved. Edit, 2024-01-08: it was recently announced by Sky News that SoundCloud appear to try to sell their platform. Hopefully, this will not lead to what Bandcamp are becoming.

Catalytic Sound

Catalytic Sound: from their site:

Catalytic Sound is a music based co-operative designed to help create economic sustainability for its artists through patron support. Put simply, one half of all album purchases and subscription fees will always go directly to the musicians of the collective.'

Ampwall

Ampwall: this platform is currently (February 2025) in beta and is similar to Bandcamp but allows artists to do more. They have a mission statement. Exciting! The UX is very nice. Also, this platform is built and run by people who are deeply involved with making underground music. What mainly differs Ampwall from Bandcamp is a subscription model where an artist pays 10 USD/year for every five hours of music uploads. Artists get 95% of the money from all purchases; in comparison, Bandcamp take 10-15% of all purchases^[1]. Ampwall is listed as a Delaware Public Benefit Company^[2], which means:

Delaware Public Benefit Corporations (PBC) function like any other for-profit corporation, but with a key difference. Public Benefit Corporations bake specific public benefit purposes into their foundation documents as for-profit entities.

There's another bit that I really like about Ampwall:

No ads, no data sales, no AI music, no crypto.

Rokk

Rokk: launched in September 2024, they want to pay artists '2-3 times more' than other streaming services and allow the end user to pay 10% of their monthly pay by signing up for Rokk via a special artist link^[3]. Support their Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign!

Direct artist support

Rokk allows people to sign up by using a special link provided by one of their favourite artists. By using that link, the artists gets 10% of the user's first-year subscription payments. Year two, they get 5%. The percentage can stay at 10% for users who pay the most.

“An artist over the course of a year could see earnings equivalent to selling multiple records, and that’s already covered in your regular subscription fee,” explained co-founder Alex Landenburg in an open letter as the service went live. Rokk is launching in the UK and Europe, with plans for expansion in the future.^[4]

Bandcamp

Bandcamp: even though Bandcamp have been sold a couple of times (in 2022 and 2023), they allow users to stream music (both via the web and via their app) and download the music, too. They take roughly 10-15% of what users pay, and the rest goes to the artist.

Another thing about Bandcamp: there's been turmoil in the company since it was sold off a couple of times. Bandcamp United is the union at Bandcamp.

RIP

Resonate

Resonate: sadly, Resonate came across a crisis early in 2023, and are winding down since October 2024. Resonate is/was the first community-owned music-streaming service. Their payment model is artist-centered and user-centric.