Paradigms Notes: Leaving social media, and how are artists surviving?
I hope this finds you well in these trying times!
This week I decided to remove the Twitter and Facebook links from the Paradigms website. It's been coming. I had already closed my accounts on both sites, but I hadn't gotten around to removing the links. I finally did and it feels good to sever those connections. I removed the Google ads last year and stopped advertising on Google. Right now Paradigms exists with no advertising at all.
Twitter and Facebook (and their subsidiaries and affiliates) have shown such disregard and lack of responsibility in administering and monitoring themselves, and this for money, that anything I would do that puts money in their coffers at all, I wanted to stop. From selling users' private information to making secret deals to effect elections, it's clear that there are no ethics involved, just greed.
The other thing I did is I signed up for an ASCAP license. Paradigms has had a BMI license for years, which means that music on the show is licensed and the artist gets something, probably not much, per play of their music. Not every artist has a BMI account, some have ASCAP, so by signing up for an ASCAP license it means more musicians will get paid through Paradigms.
The Paradigms revenue stream comes through the Patreon page, which, right now, brings in $65 a month. That $780 a year is about a third of the cost of putting on the show, maintaining the website, etc. The rest comes out of my pocket, and I earn my money doing therapy and make between $30k and $40k a year before taxes.
Why be transparent about this? Because while Paradigms is my creation, the support of listeners is part of what sustains it. Even though the monthly revenue is small it not only helps pay the bills, it helps remind me that people value Paradigms, which is the mission, to add value to people's lives. The cost of producing the show will go up with the ASCAP license, and as I said, that is money that will go to artists, so worth supporting.
Since Covid the number of radio stations downloading Paradigms from the Pacifica Audio Port has gone from 6 to 50 (some weeks) which means more people are hearing the show. That is very exciting!
Thanks for reading, and thank you for listening to Paradigms!
This week I decided to remove the Twitter and Facebook links from the Paradigms website. It's been coming. I had already closed my accounts on both sites, but I hadn't gotten around to removing the links. I finally did and it feels good to sever those connections. I removed the Google ads last year and stopped advertising on Google. Right now Paradigms exists with no advertising at all.
Twitter and Facebook (and their subsidiaries and affiliates) have shown such disregard and lack of responsibility in administering and monitoring themselves, and this for money, that anything I would do that puts money in their coffers at all, I wanted to stop. From selling users' private information to making secret deals to effect elections, it's clear that there are no ethics involved, just greed.
The other thing I did is I signed up for an ASCAP license. Paradigms has had a BMI license for years, which means that music on the show is licensed and the artist gets something, probably not much, per play of their music. Not every artist has a BMI account, some have ASCAP, so by signing up for an ASCAP license it means more musicians will get paid through Paradigms.
The Paradigms revenue stream comes through the Patreon page, which, right now, brings in $65 a month. That $780 a year is about a third of the cost of putting on the show, maintaining the website, etc. The rest comes out of my pocket, and I earn my money doing therapy and make between $30k and $40k a year before taxes.
Why be transparent about this? Because while Paradigms is my creation, the support of listeners is part of what sustains it. Even though the monthly revenue is small it not only helps pay the bills, it helps remind me that people value Paradigms, which is the mission, to add value to people's lives. The cost of producing the show will go up with the ASCAP license, and as I said, that is money that will go to artists, so worth supporting.
Since Covid the number of radio stations downloading Paradigms from the Pacifica Audio Port has gone from 6 to 50 (some weeks) which means more people are hearing the show. That is very exciting!
Thanks for reading, and thank you for listening to Paradigms!
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