I think people misunderstand some of the issues. I don’t care if someone wants to pay for or charge for hosting. Now I’d argue if you are, you’re not v4v, you’re charging for a service, but I don’t care if you want to charge for your service. I pay for services all the time.

My main beef with Wavlake (and for the record I think what WL does is good for a lot of people) is they are an exclusive platform. If your music isn’t hosted by Wavlake, you can’t play it on Wavlake. I mean they can do whatever they want, but I wouldn’t call them an open platform.

My main beef with musicians is hosting your own music is so easy. Like it’s as easy as importing a CD and cataloging in iTunes. If you want to use a host or Wavlake because you understand the process and still want some else to handle a server going down, I get it. But I grew up with punk rockers with a DIY spirit, and hosting your songs is easier than screen printing a shirt or ripping a CD. I don’t want musicians thinking Wavlake or any other platform is doing a bunch of heavy lifting that is too complicated for the musician to figure out. I want them to be able to make informed choices. And if they host out themselves, they can do it for a little more than $1 a month. If they’re already hosting a website for their band, they can add their music and a feed for no additional cost.

If they make $100 a month, they have to pay $10 for the service. If it’s $1000 they pay $100. Or they can host it themselves and pay $1 or no additional cost. I just want the musicians to know there’s alternatives and their choices aren’t limited to Spotify or Wavlake, and Wavlake isn’t providing anything they couldn’t provide for themselves.