Conservative projections suggest The Pack's model could attract tens, if not hundreds of millions of users globally. Not because it's a tech disruptor with a clever growth hack. Because the problem it's solving is everywhere.

The dissatisfaction with how major streaming platforms treat artists, compensate musicians, and homogenise discovery isn't a Western Australian problem or an Australian problem. It's a structural problem with the platform capitalism model, and it exists everywhere the model operates - which is everywhere.

The cooperative alternative isn't a niche ethical preference for people who care about music. It is a model that addresses a documented, global failure in how recorded music generates income for the people who make it.

New blog on the global appetite for a different streaming model, and why thinking locally doesn't mean thinking small.

👉 https://www.packmusic.au/blog/supersizedstreamingsucks

#EthicalStreaming #MusicIndustry #PlatformCooperative #IndependentMusic #ThePackMusic #GlobalMusic #MusicianOwned

#ShawnCarter

L’industrie musicale peut être douteuse.
Beaucoup de pionniers du hip-hop ont été arnaqués. Ils n’ont jamais reçu le crédit ni l’argent qu’ils méritaient pour ce qu’ils ont aidé à développer.
Payez-nous comme si vous nous deviez toutes les années où vous nous avez exploités.

#ColdCrushBrothers #HipHop
#OldSchool #Rap #MusicIndustry

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s10qlNH01oo&list=OLAK5uy_mlkqJLYTvhaIJtUqYnwPbkUn7qS4eY1qM&index=4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rj2rmVC_W64&list=OLAK5uy_mlkqJLYTvhaIJtUqYnwPbkUn7qS4eY1qM&index=2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb_a2-O7EQo&list=OLAK5uy_mlkqJLYTvhaIJtUqYnwPbkUn7qS4eY1qM&index=7

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JscUCf4zdqw&list=OLAK5uy_mlkqJLYTvhaIJtUqYnwPbkUn7qS4eY1qM&index=13

The cooperative model is not new. The Rochdale Pioneers established the first modern consumer cooperative in 1844, in response to exploitative pricing by mill owners. The context maps onto the streaming conversation with uncomfortable precision.

The cooperative sector globally represents $2.5 trillion in combined turnover and supports the livelihoods of around one billion people. Mondragon employs over 70,000 people and generates €11 billion in annual revenue alone. The argument that cooperatives are charming but unscalable doesn't survive contact with the evidence.

The reason platform cooperatives are rare in the tech sector isn't that cooperative principles are incompatible with digital platforms. It's that venture capital requires a return structure that is fundamentally incompatible with cooperative ownership - and so the funding infrastructure for technology has actively selected against this model for decades.

The Pack started with a structural question: what would it look like if the distribution infrastructure were owned by the people whose work it distributes? Not managed on their behalf by a company whose interests might or might not align with theirs. Owned by them. Governed by them.

New blog on cooperative history, platform cooperativism, and why your grandmother's ethics still hold up in the digital age.

👉 https://www.packmusic.au/blog/music-streaming-and-the-platform-cooperative-a-match-made-in-music-heaven-finally-some-good-news

#CooperativeEconomics #MusicIndustry #IndependentMusic #ThePackMusic #EthicalBusiness #MusicianOwned #FutureOfMusic

There was a story told about the internet and music: the old industry was gatekept and extractive, pirates were everywhere, stealing your revenue. Streaming would protect your work, democratise distribution and let artists connect directly with audiences. It was a persuasive story. It also turned out to be considerably more useful to the platforms than to the artists.

What actually happened was that the infrastructure of music distribution was rebuilt around a different extraction model — one that kept artists as necessary inputs while moving the profits elsewhere. And it's still owned by gatekeepers pirates… they've just gone legit…

I've been thinking about this for the better part of a decade, which is part of what led me to co-found The Pack. Not because nostalgia is a viable strategy, but because I think the original premise — that artists deserve to own their distribution infrastructure and not be owned by labels and billionaire tech bros - was right and remains achievable. We're crowdfunding to do it. Can you help?

https://crowdfunding.startsomegood.com/thepackmusiccoop #CreativeEconomy #FairWork #CooperativeValues #MusicIndustry