5 Reasons why Repealing Net Neutrality will disrupt Underground Music
I am not a fan of writing listicles, but I wanted to think about how repealing Net Neutrality and controlling the interwebs would kill my endeavors as an artist and effects people involved in independent creative communities.
- Streaming is no longer affordable
What will happen to the price point for Spotify or even free streaming sites like Bandcamp,Youtube,and Soundcloud? Soundcloud and Youtube have already implemented a no ads subscription service. I could end up paying over 100$ a month to listen to music, and we already know my 100 dollars is not going to the wallets of the musicians I am listening to.
2. New Bands/Artists Won’t Be Discoverable
With limited bandwith, I have to choose between paying my bills on time and discovering new bands given the fact I will have to budget my internet usage. Everyone needs to survive, and if you are a new band during this time, your discoverability greatly gets reduced not that that being discovered already is a challenge. ( Millions of songs on Spotify already do not get played, look up Forgotify for more information).
3. Booking Tours becomes more Limiting
Without a doubt the use of email has allowed countless booking managers, publicists, and musicians streamline the booking system. Cold calling is no longer necessary. The access to finding places to contact to play shows is currently very very easy. If Net Neutrality is repealed, you have to factor in a pricing plan just to get information and spend time to maintain the same contacts and leads you have had in the past to book tours.
4. Managing social media now has an additional overhead on top of paid advertisements.
You think musicians, creatives and small business owners are going to be able to afford the overhead to upkeep digital space for social media branding on top of adding advertisements? You can kiss your entire financial inflow goodbye in a world where net neutrality is repealed. No more memes, no more blogs, no more vlogs, it’s too expensive to make it happen. Especially in a world where our content does not always give us a sustainable/profitable ROI.
5. The value of our music may increase, but our consumers may not be able to reach it anymore.
Whether you download music, stream videos, read poetry, or buy music, controlling the overall band withs of creative content will not be nearly as accessible as it used to be, and what this means for consumers let alone people who live off the income of their content being consumed is very very scary.
Will this mean that creative industries will have to survive the way they did before the internet? Who knows. The FCC did not let Eminem be, but now it seems like the FCC won’t let any of us be. This is not good. Send a message to your representatives
https://act.eff.org/action/congress-don-t-sell-the-internet-out