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One of the major pivots the music industry has made in response to the COVID-19 pandemic is a shift in focus from lean-back, aggregate streaming channels (e.g. Spotify, Apple Music) to direct-to-fan channels (e.g. Bandcamp, Shopify, Patreon) where the revenue impact is more immediate and transparent. Monthly membership revenue in particular is easi... See more

As with most other business models in music, paid membership models and closed "fan clubs" require a lot of work to execute well. Even the highest level of celebrity status does not guarantee success: In 2019, Taylor Swift and the Kardashian sisters had to shut down their own social apps, largely due to neglect.

Now that Patreon has been around for seven years, many founders see the platform as an incumbent to be disrupted.

"The question that we've had for so long — where the f*ck is the money going to come from? — is finally clearer," says Mader. "Where we were seeing dwindling returns elsewhere, the dots are starting to connect here and I really see a future with it and a way to grow it."

The concept of a paid, crowdfunded membership for music is nothing new. Fan clubs for pop culture have been around since the early nineteenth century, and crowdfunding in particular is at the core of musical entrepreneurship in the Internet age. One of the world's first crowdfunding sites, ArtistShare, was founded in 2001 specifically for musicians... See more

Beyond Patreon and Memberful, there are a handful of music-specific options on the market. Bandcamp allows subscriptions, but only a few labels like Topshelf Records and Tiny Engines have enabled the feature. Withfriends focuses on memberships for brick-and-mortar small businesses, and counts venues and promoters like Elsewhere and AdHoc as custome... See more

A handful of new music-focused options have launched in the past half year alone, including Currents FM and Ampled, both of which intentionally position themselves as more artist-friendly alternatives to Patreon

Ampled is structured as a platform cooperative, whereby all artists, fans and company workers co-own the platform on a "one-person, one-share, one-vote basis." The company's relationship with investors is also structured as "revenue-based financing" — a model in which investors inject cash into a business in exchange for a small percentage of top-l... See more

"When Patreon talks about how 'the system is broken,' they're talking specifically about advertising models on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram," Austin Robey, co-founder of Ampled, tells me. "When we [Ampled] talk about a system being broken, it's not just ad models — it's the whole, underlying economic operating system on which startups are built.... See more