Bandcamp sold to Songtradr (not a deal)

[PavlovsCat]

2 minutes ago, telecode 101 said:

Last I heard. It would take you a year listening 24/7 to catch up with all the music being released in one day on Spotify. There is no way you could figure out what artists you would want to listen to without a big label and big marketing campaign.

Yep. that is the challenge beyond the challenge of making really good music people want to listen to. It's a lot like having a website. There was a time in the early days of the web where having a website was a big deal. MySpace was awesome for its time, IMO. But now there's so much content out there it's incredibly difficult for someone without a team and big budget behind them to find the RIGHT audience. 

Peter brought up Dave Kerzner -- who I'm guessing some people here are familiar with (he founded Sonic Reality and had played keyboards with Kevin Gilbert -- a singer/songwriter/musician I was very fond of -- back in the 90s). Dave has done a lot of touring (live shows) and is active engaging his fans in social media. So, he follows the indie long-time model of combining traditional live shows and online presence. I think, unless you have a huge social media presence -- such as being a popular influencer -- that's the route that still works best for most indie artists. If you haven't built an audience using either live shows or online, and just put your music up on a service like BandCamp, they will not come (taking that from the often-used Field of Dreams paraphrase, "if you build it they will come"). It's simply too challenging for the right audience to find the right music with so much content out there. That's when you either need a lot of luck (rare) or, more likely, a lot of money and a publicity machine behind you. Most musicians putting up their music on services like BandCamp don't have those resources. I think there are ways of doing it better than the current solutions, especially with using AI to match those who want music around their interests, but the problem is always going to be that those recommendations are going to be impacted by financial concerns. That is, the platforms are going to promote those who pay and I doubt that will ever change. It would have to be a nonprofit that is completely ethics driven by art over commerce for indie artists to get the same treatment as artists with a big budget behind them. 

[PavlovsCat]

On 10/2/2023 at 3:50 PM, Brian Walton said:

I am under the impression this is the case for every avenue/platform out there.

Of course, there are creators that aren't realistic about their abilities and music. That's a heck of a lot of folks there. But that really isn't my concern with building a better mousetrap. I think the greater concern -- at least for me -- is that there are really talented artists who aren't able to reach listeners who would appreciate their work. There's this potential promise that the web has that it can cut out middle men, but the reality is that it doesn't really happen because of how crowded things are it still takes money to reach the right audience. But I absolutely do think it's possible and maybe someday, someone will do it. But it's far more profitable, and much less complex, to operate the system as is, so that those that already have an established following or a serious promotional budget and team behind them get the attention on the music streaming platforms. 

Edited October 4, 2023 by PavlovsCat

[telecode 101]

1 hour ago, PavlovsCat said:

Yep. that is the challenge beyond the challenge of making really good music people want to listen to. It's a lot like having a website. There was a time in the early days of the web where having a website was a big deal. MySpace was awesome for its time, IMO. But now there's so much content out there it's incredibly difficult for someone without a team and big budget behind them to find the RIGHT audience. 

Peter brought up Dave Kerzner -- who I'm guessing some people here are familiar with (he founded Sonic Reality and had played keyboards with Kevin Gilbert -- a singer/songwriter/musician I was very fond of -- back in the 90s). Dave has done a lot of touring (live shows) and is active engaging his fans in social media. So, he follows the indie long-time model of combining traditional live shows and online presence. I think, unless you have a huge social media presence -- such as being a popular influencer -- that's the route that still works best for most indie artists. If you haven't built an audience using either live shows or online, and just put your music up on a service like BandCamp, they will not come (taking that from the often-used Field of Dreams paraphrase, "if you build it they will come"). It's simply too challenging for the right audience to find the right music with so much content out there. That's when you either need a lot of luck (rare) or, more likely, a lot of money and a publicity machine behind you. Most musicians putting up their music on services like BandCamp don't have those resources. I think there are ways of doing it better than the current solutions, especially with using AI to match those who want music around their interests, but the problem is always going to be that those recommendations are going to be impacted by financial concerns. That is, the platforms are going to promote those who pay and I doubt that will ever change. It would have to be a nonprofit that is completely ethics driven by art over commerce for indie artists to get the same treatment as artists with a big budget behind them. 

I am just doing this with no commercial expectations. I just do it because I enjoy doing it and its a hobby. Making music and using music tools that were in the past inaccessible is whats it all about for me. its a lot of fun. I sort of approach it as a personal challenge to myself. Can I be focused enough to complete a song or a complete work that lasts 5 mins or so.

I am very far removed from what is currently modern or popular music and musicians.  Where I am these are the types of people that are currently what audiences like to see and  hear. That ain't me. Kerzner is cool and respect what he does, but I would never do that and never did it in the past. a) I have a job and use the monies  from that to fund my hobbies. And b) even when I was younger, I never was after making money from music. I never taught guitar to kids in the neighbor hood or did things like play in cover bands.

Edited October 2, 2023 by telecode 101

[mibby]

1 hour ago, telecode 101 said:

I am just doing this with no commercial expectations. I just do it because I enjoy doing it and its a hobby. Making music and using music tools that were in the past inaccessible is whats it all about for me. its a lot of fun. I sort of approach it as a personal challenge to myself. ...

^^^ This. ^^^

I've found it's a lot more fun when you're just doing it to do it and not to try and make a living. Plus, I'm totally fascinated by plugins and everything that's available to the home studio musician these days.

Edited October 2, 2023 by mibby

[Tommy Byrnes]

I really like Bandcamp. In my genre, Celtic music, most of the bands and artists I love have their music  on Bandcamp, which is where I buy their music. I've discovered quite a few new ones as well. And they are artists who tour extensively, both in Europe and here. I don't know what their total share of  sales come from Bandcamp but it's very easy to find and buy their music.

Also, a main plus is the ability to download 24/48 wave files of the recordings, not just lossy files.

I retired from touring and live performances twenty years ago and nowadays that is really the only way to make a living as a pure musician. By that I mean someone who's career is primarily performance-focused. I was that for decades but in order to continue to make a living in music  I had to adapt and change as life changed. Marriage, kids and all that comes with it made me need to change my lifestyle and my strategy.

For the last couple of decades I've run a small recording studio and have enough clients from that, along with teaching, a bit of session work and some consulting, that I don't need to rely on the income from album sales or touring any more . So for me, Bandcamp is a perfect place to put my music and send clients and others to it check out  and maybe toss some money my way.

[Carl Ewing]

7 hours ago, PavlovsCat said:

If you haven't built an audience using either live shows or online, and just put your music up on a service like BandCamp, they will not come (taking that from the often-used Field of Dreams paraphrase, "if you build it they will come"). It's simply too challenging for the right audience to find the right music with so much content out there. 

When - in any business, anywhere in the world, at any point in history, was it possible to find success by just putting **** somewhere and hoping people will find it? This is playing the 1 in a million lottery. There are SO many bitter businesses around that just expect people to find their amazing stuff, while doing really nothing at all to draw attention. 

The quote from that film is "If you build it, he will come", not "they". People - and I mean almost an entire generation of business 'people', used that misquote as a life mantra. And the misquote was intentional. Changing one word meant  "omg, the message of this movie means I don't have to do **** except just make something. I just made a ceramic pot. I'll just leave it on this table and "they" will come buy it." The movie is about religious faith, not about selling albums on Bandcamp. 

So. Yesterday, on October 2nd, how much time did you spend randomly searching for music you've never heard of, and stumble on something brand new that you liked by accident, and threw down cash to buy it? Zero time? Okay. Now multiply that by 8 billion people on the planet. This would be the equivalent of releasing a CD or Vinyl to 1000 stores back in the 80s and waiting for somebody to randomly find it  (among the 100,000 other albums), love it, buy it, hopefully spread the news. 

This isn't a business strategy. Making money from music is business. The art is making the music. Selling music is no different than selling vacuum cleaners. 

Also, there are ways to play this non-marketing "hope and pray" lottery game and make the odds better. That includes understand search engines, how to correctly tag / categorize / describe music for better ranking / results, knowing your audience and making sure those random accidents happen where that audience is. I do actually spend a lot of time randomly searching for music (there are a few of us around). It's amazing how little effort many artists put into making their music easy to find, or prioritizing platforms that don't cater to their genre.  For example - edm artists who just post to Soundcloud and not Beatport. 

And on the Bandcamp subject. I still find it funny that Soundcloud has incredible technical infrastructure / UX (both front end & backend) for streaming globally, but terrible content & merch support , and Bandcamp has incredible content & merch support but terrible technical infrastructure / UX (both front end & backend). It's like both companies understand only one side of the business and can't figure out the other.  Just need to get these two companies in a room. 

[telecode 101]

5 hours ago, Carl Ewing said:

The art is making the music.

this is pretty much the only thing I care or focus on. its  a hobby. like those people that will buy some paints and a small canvas and go pain a flower or creek on weekends for their own enjoyment. or someone picking up photography as a hobby. but in this case, music and software. It has nothing to do whatsoever with trying to sell the canvas or photos  in a gallery or try to make prints and sell it in IKEA. its totally devoid of that sort of commercial reality and does not need to be joined at the hip in order to be enjoyable or successful.

the business of music is a different thing. its not just music. its a lot of marketing, selling, dealing with people that don't make music. maybe even dealing with a lot of annoying people you dont want to deal with or even be near them. it's not something everyone wants to do if they dont have to do it.

Edited October 3, 2023 by telecode 101

[Brian Walton]

18 hours ago, PavlovsCat said:

I'll be really candid, there are creators that aren't talented enough to be out there, that are just unrealistic about their abilities and music. That's a heck of a lot of folks there. But that really isn't my concern with building a better mousetrap. I think the greater concern -- at least for me -- is that there are really talented artists who aren't able to reach listeners who would appreciate their work. There's this potential promise that the web has that it can cut out middle men, but the reality is that it doesn't really happen because of how crowded things are it still takes money to reach the right audience. But I absolutely do think it's possible and maybe someday, someone will do it. But it's far more profitable, and much less complex, to operate the system as is, so that those that already have an established following or a serious promotional budget and team behind them get the attention on the music streaming platforms. 

In the music business, talent usually isn't the direct correlation to sales.  Many classical and jazz musicians are certainly more musically knowledgeable/gifted than the average pop star.  Sharing music is quite simple these days - reaching an audience that is willing to pay for your work - well that is the challenge but I think it has less to do with ones ability to reach a few listeners.  

The majority stream instead of purchase now and the perceived value of owning a recording is next to non-existent for the average individual.  

Music streaming doesn't seem to be getting people rich - even successful acts complain about how much it pays them.

[PavlovsCat]

2 hours ago, Brian Walton said:

In the music business, talent usually isn't the direct correlation to sales.  Many classical and jazz musicians are certainly more musically knowledgeable/gifted than the average pop star.  Sharing music is quite simple these days - reaching an audience that is willing to pay for your work - well that is the challenge but I think it has less to do with ones ability to reach a few listeners.  

The majority stream instead of purchase now and the perceived value of owning a recording is next to non-existent for the average individual.  

Music streaming doesn't seem to be getting people rich - even successful acts complain about how much it pays them.

Absolutely true about talent not equaling success. I was just thinking about the majority of people who put music up. The reality is, the majority of them aren't people with great or even mediocre talent. Most simply aren't honest with themselves about this stuff.

I think, with home studios and DAWS making it easy for anyone to create multitrack songs, it's led to a lot of people creating music that didn't get the reality check live playing gives you. As a musician,  the audition process is one reality check.  When you have to compete to play in a band in open auditions or when you do a lot of live shows, especially to larger audiences, you get a reality check on how the world sees your abilities. I think there are a lot of people who've never done that who aren't able to be objective about their abilities or potential who make up the vast majority of people putting their music on BandCamp and the truth is, that also makes it harder to find good music. And for those who are in the group who are super talented but haven't reached a large audience,  it's super tough.  There are a few people in this forum who share music who are very talented and deserving of a larger audience,  IMO (and no, I'm not among them; I'm just a former very good drummer who thought he wrote decent songs with bad tendinitis who's attempting to play again; at my best, my recordings are demo quality) and there are people I've found on SoundCloud, who are very talented but haven't found an audience. I've stumbled across some artists on SoundCloud that are really, really talented but have very few listens. That's really frustrating to me as a former musician and someone who loves music. 

Edited October 3, 2023 by PavlovsCat

[Brian Walton]

3 hours ago, PavlovsCat said:

Absolutely true about talent not equaling success. I was just thinking about the majority of people who put music up. The reality is, the majority of them aren't people with great or even mediocre talent. Most simply aren't honest with themselves about this stuff.

I think, with home studios and DAWS making it easy for anyone to create multitrack songs, it's led to a lot of people creating music that didn't get the reality check live playing gives you. As a musician,  the audition process is one reality check.  When you have to compete to play in a band in open auditions or when you do a lot of live shows, especially to larger audiences, you get a reality check on how the world sees your abilities. I think there are a lot of people who've never done that who aren't able to be objective about their abilities or potential who make up the vast majority of people putting their music on BandCamp and the truth is, that also makes it harder to find good music. And for those who are in the group who are super talented but haven't reached a large audience,  it's super tough.  There are a few people in this forum who share music who are very talented and deserving of a larger audience,  IMO (and no, I'm not among them; I'm just a former very good drummer who thought he wrote decent songs with bad tendinitis who's attempting to play again; at my best, my recordings are demo quality) and there are people I've found on SoundCloud, who are very talented but haven't found an audience. I've stumbled across some artists on SoundCloud that are really, really talented but have very few listens. That's really frustrating to me as a former musician and someone who loves music. 

While anyone and everyone can create recordings now, it has also never been easier to simply "change the channel" after 3 seconds of hearing something.  In fact, even music people like might only get a 30 second listen with the attention span these days!  

There has always been a small signal to noise ratio, for recorded music there simply used to be a larger financial gate keeper for mass public consumption.  

I think anyone with something to offer can get an audience, but with so much to chose from - it is also less likely that the audience is going to stick around for the next song let alone album form an artist or group statistically speaking.  

It seems like there is even more pressure to put out track after track spread over time now to keep relevant and maintain your audience as the next shinny single release comes along.  

Even "album" bands are stuck with this piece meal track at a time mentality based on current consumption patterns.  Pretty sad when someone like Derek Trucks has to have those conversations with his label about how the music gets released.

[telecode 101]

I see the availability of music really no different that availability of tv and film content. In the last, 30 or 40 years ago you only had a few channels or radio stations. So yeah, it was really easy for make something and capture an audience. there weren't that many other channels to switch to.

[Nick Blanc]

Off topic but hold on, didn't we have a whole influencers vs Behringer topic going on here or somewhere else in this forum? Just yesterday. Is it gone? 

[PavlovsCat]

24 minutes ago, Nick Blanc said:

Off topic but hold on, didn't we have a whole influencers vs Behringer topic going on here or somewhere else in this forum? Just yesterday. Is it gone? 

Yep. I started the thread. It got deleted.  There a couple of folks here who report any thread I make and do things like falsely claim I use affiliate marketing links to get my threads and posts deleted. Thankfully, they didn't get my mega post threads on free libraries deleted. I've had to defend a number of my posts to the mods because of fake claims like that certain folks keep making about any threads I do. I was enjoying nerding out in that last thread and I promised someone I'd share some research on going rates for influencers and when I was about to post it, the thread was deleted. So whoever that was, let me know and I can PM it to you. We had an interesting and intelligent discussion going on and it was no less appropriate for the deals forum than this one. 

Edited October 4, 2023 by PavlovsCat

[Nick Blanc]

28 minutes ago, PavlovsCat said:

Yep. I started the thread. It got deleted.  There a couple of folks here who report any thread I make and do things like falsely claim I use affiliate marketing links to get my threads and posts deleted. Thankfully, they didn't get my mega post threads on free libraries deleted. I've had to defend a number of my posts to the mods because of fake claims like that certain folks keep making about any threads I do. I was enjoying nerding out in that last thread and I promised someone I'd share some research on going rates for influencers and when I was about to post it, the thread was deleted. So whoever that was, let me know and I can PM it to you. We had an interesting and intelligent discussion going on and it was no less appropriate for the deals forum than this one. 

Ah see, I wasn't going crazy. They could have just moved it if it was the inappropriate forum right?  It wasn't political or anything. I was enjoying reading along and commenting. Weird and sad that you get these false reports. Or they could have closed it and give a reason for closure as a final comment. Now I have to hijack Benn Jordan's X feed and Youtube comments to get in on the Behringer action.

[PavlovsCat]

2 minutes ago, Nick Blanc said:

Ah see, I wasn't going crazy. They could have just moved it if it was the inappropriate forum right?  It wasn't political or anything. I was enjoying reading along and commenting. Weird and sad that you get these false reports. Or they could have closed it and give a reason for closure as a final comment. Now I have to hijack Benn Jordan's X feed and Youtube comments to get in on the Behringer action.

Ha! I don't know what happened,  but historically, my threads and posts are targeted A LOT and I'm guessing that it was reported by one of those two and it probably was deleted because they complained comments criticizing Behringer were not appropriate for the deals forum and the mods just want to make things simple. Wookiee is a mod and he's a volunteer and a seriously really kind and thoughtful person, because I've spent a bunch of time explaining to him why I am targeted and why their claims that I'm doing affiliate marketing are a scam to cause trouble.  But Behringer does fascinate me, and not in a good way.  Maybe the mod who deleted it can chime in. I'd appreciate that. 

[Nick Blanc]

3 minutes ago, PavlovsCat said:

Ha! I don't know what happened,  but historically, my threads and posts are targeted A LOT and I'm guessing that it was reported by one of those two and it probably was deleted because they complained comments criticizing Behringer were not appropriate for the deals forum and the mods just want to make things simple. Wookiee is a mod and he's a volunteer and a seriously really kind and thoughtful person, because I've spent a bunch of time explaining to him why I am targeted and why their claims that I'm doing affiliate marketing are a scam to cause trouble.  But Behringer does fascinate me, and not in a good way.  Maybe the mod who deleted it can chime in. I'd appreciate that. 

Yeah I had my 'run in' with Wookiee when I accidentally closed down the IK 25 year group buy thread. Totally nice and reasonable guy. The whole Behringer thing  just fascinates me because the discussion (also elsewhere) seems to take an unexpected turn where people are calling out the influencers too. I didn't see that coming. And it made me rethink their role and how there definitely is some shady business going on. Yesterday I commented on the latest video from Benn Jordan on Youtube where he advertised and praised Zzounds but made the (very funny) disclaimer that he had no financial arrangement blabla the usual thing. While at the same time using a $5000 Korg arranger keyboard borrowed from Zzounds to create content which makes him money and linking to his own website which links to Zzounds. I can't prove anything, and he has a reputation of being really upfront and candid about these things, but I can't help but thinking there is some undisclosed business going on there.

[X-53mph]

On 10/3/2023 at 7:24 AM, Carl Ewing said:

When - in any business, anywhere in the world, at any point in history, was it possible to find success by just putting **** somewhere and hoping people will find it? This is playing the 1 in a million lottery. There are SO many bitter businesses around that just expect people to find their amazing stuff, while doing really nothing at all to draw attention. 

The quote from that film is "If you build it, he will come", not "they". People - and I mean almost an entire generation of business 'people', used that misquote as a life mantra. And the misquote was intentional. Changing one word meant  "omg, the message of this movie means I don't have to do **** except just make something. I just made a ceramic pot. I'll just leave it on this table and "they" will come buy it." The movie is about religious faith, not about selling albums on Bandcamp. 

So. Yesterday, on October 2nd, how much time did you spend randomly searching for music you've never heard of, and stumble on something brand new that you liked by accident, and threw down cash to buy it? Zero time? Okay. Now multiply that by 8 billion people on the planet. This would be the equivalent of releasing a CD or Vinyl to 1000 stores back in the 80s and waiting for somebody to randomly find it  (among the 100,000 other albums), love it, buy it, hopefully spread the news. 

This isn't a business strategy. Making money from music is business. The art is making the music. Selling music is no different than selling vacuum cleaners. 

Also, there are ways to play this non-marketing "hope and pray" lottery game and make the odds better. That includes understand search engines, how to correctly tag / categorize / describe music for better ranking / results, knowing your audience and making sure those random accidents happen where that audience is. I do actually spend a lot of time randomly searching for music (there are a few of us around). It's amazing how little effort many artists put into making their music easy to find, or prioritizing platforms that don't cater to their genre.  For example - edm artists who just post to Soundcloud and not Beatport. 

And on the Bandcamp subject. I still find it funny that Soundcloud has incredible technical infrastructure / UX (both front end & backend) for streaming globally, but terrible content & merch support , and Bandcamp has incredible content & merch support but terrible technical infrastructure / UX (both front end & backend). It's like both companies understand only one side of the business and can't figure out the other.  Just need to get these two companies in a room. 

Thanks for the sweaty rant. I think most musicians get what you're saying, but I'm gonna flip this around.

Let's say I have a budget of 1,000 bucks. To promote my music. How do I go about spending it? 

Random influencers on TikTok?

Facebook marketing?

A medium sized poster on one subway wall?

The reality is that if you are doing it yourself, no matter how much money you throw at marketing or advertising, your not going to get that money back in sales if you don't know where to put it. And that's the crux of the problem. 

Musicians are 'artsy' people who just want to make something. You can find infinite courses on how to 'make' the stuff, mix it, engineer it etc.. but I'm yet to see a really effective course that explains how to market that stuff with guaranteed return. Why? Because if you're not connected, if you don't know the right people (or unless you are super super lucky), it just isn't gonna happen.

[PavlovsCat]

10 minutes ago, Nick Blanc said:

Yeah I had my 'run in' with Wookiee when I accidentally closed down the IK 25 year group buy thread. Totally nice and reasonable guy. The whole Behringer thing  just fascinates me because the discussion (also elsewhere) seems to take an unexpected turn where people are calling out the influencers too. I didn't see that coming. And it made me rethink their role and how there definitely is some shady business going on. Yesterday I commented on the latest video from Benn Jordan on Youtube where he advertised and praised Zzounds but made the (very funny) disclaimer that he had no financial arrangement blabla the usual thing. While at the same time using a $5000 Korg arranger keyboard borrowed from Zzounds to create content which makes him money and linking to his own website which links to Zzounds. I can't prove anything, and he has a reputation of being really upfront and candid about these things, but I can't help but thinking there is some undisclosed business going on there.

I'll shortcut the influencer discussion,  as I shared, I have a background leading digital marketing at major brands and consulting, so I'm not an outsider. My profession is the one greasing the palms of influencers. The shortcut is, just think of them as covert infomercial pitch people,  even the ones that appear the most credible,  because the who point of an influencer is gaining people's trust and then cashing in on that trust to sell it to companies. Micro influencers (the folks with the smallest audiences usually operate by getting free product and usually try to persuade the brands they give "reviews" to sponsor or advertise with them. But there are times when influencers aren't getting any money direct from a brand,  especially micro influencers who don't have a big following and often just focused on getting free product. 

[PavlovsCat]

I had another study that had rates for YouTube, but I couldn't find it and came across the one that had this chart instead, which doesn't include YouTube, but you get the idea. Marketing people regularly deal with influencers, it's a standard part of the job, and you have to pay them -- and sadly, marketers aren't requiring that influencers comply with regulations and laws, even though most countries try to push the brands to keep the influencers accountable, the brands don't want to do it because they realize that if an influencer is honest with his/her audience, it can and likely will destroy the false perception that they're unbiased, which is the cornerstone of how they gain trust with their audiences. 

Again, every influencer isn't getting money upfront and sometimes the small ones in this space are working for free products and sponsorships (which is really just another way that a brand pays off the influencer for promotion but a lot of influencers like that so they can say things like "no money changed hands"). I shared that one influencer I've gotten to know and like a lot in this space is Cory Pelazarri. I became a fan when he did a review of drum library and he shared the problems that some of the samples had and that he talked to the developer and the developer refused to fix the problems. NO influencers do that. That blew me away. I immediately contacted a developer I've consulted to who's been a good friend who is the most honest business person I know and told him he needs to get his product in this developer's hands. Because I knew that developer and I think a lot alike and he makes superb sample libraries where this influencer can be just brutally honest, as he has done. But I know from Cory that he's had a lot of trouble with developers, even threats of lawsuits. Granted, those are frivolous threats, but they can intimidate someone who isn't legally savvy into thinking they're going to lose everything they own, and I know that Cory has felt intimidated, and has had more than one developer give him problems. Now do I think any influencer, even Cory, who I like a lot, is beyond being influenced by freebies and money? Absolutely not. 

But personally, I still watch SOME influencers, of course, realizing that they're pitchmen. Of course, Cory, then I really get a kick out of the White Sea Studio guy and our own Simeon is a lot of fun to watch play. And to Simeon's credit, after I did some posts in this forum about disclosures that influencers are supposed to be doing but almost never do, Simeon immediately started doing the disclosures. I definitely don't believe influencers are necessarily bad people. It's just that the business model is all about selling your trust to brands for money. It's not about doing legitimate, journalistic quality unbiased reviews or testing and reviews like Consumer Reports. Influencers really aren't doing unbiased reviews, they're doing product pitches like infomercial pitchmen. And if they started being honest about it, I wouldn't have a big problem with them. But the problem is that they're trying to deceive people that they're unbiased and uncompensated -- all of them do it. And I've actually arranged relationships and the reality is, yeah, you see these folks deceiving their audience,  but blowing a whistle isn't going to stop it, because brands (marketers) will just find another influencer. I think until you have better enforcement of regulations and more consumer awareness of practices, influencer marketing will remain as sleazy as it currently is, because brands / marketers are never going to be the ones to stop it. It's super profitable for them. 

Edited October 4, 2023 by PavlovsCat

[Nick Blanc]

If someone's interested, I came across a YouTube channel (well, the almighty algorithm did run it across me, but how did it know I was thinking about this stuff??!!!).

https://youtube.com/@badhairdetective?si=Mp0QKXxva9rZLho0

He makes very bizarre videos, entertaining even and with a lot of effort where he calls out every shill in the business. Worth checking out.