One thing that is lost when using auto cameras is using focus & DOF as part of composition. With an auto-everything camera, the only part the user does is frame the shot. But composing requires thought about where you choose to place the focal plane, and the depth of field. Also lost with auto digital is pre-visualisation. No need for it as most people just bang off shots & look at the result. The delay of seeing film developed means film prohotographers learn to previz their shots. Less and better.
I really despise Spotify's payout algorithm too, since you mention it.
For the longest time I was a big Tidal fan. Still am. But I feel their financials show writing on the wall for their future. But one of the reasons for that appreciation on my part was that they 1) paid a lot more, per stream, to artists (sometimes, 8-10x more than Spotify's nominal purported royalties), and 2) they didn't have an algorithm for payout that heavily favored the 800lb artists in the room over the smaller, struggling acts.
It has a fantastic reverb too! Would love to take a drum kit down there... and a speaker to play a sweep & capture an IR. Tried using handclaps when I visited.
I disagree re toil. The original idea that brings a creative work into existence is only a tiny part of how that work evolves with every step. For example absolutely no writer starts off writing their final draft. They write & through writing their ideas are clarified & new ideas form, that they did not previously have, all due to the 'toil' of writing the previous drafts. Skipping all the steps that are required to create significant work leads to shallow work born from instant gratification, exactly like the Ghibli slop. It's not 'gatekeeping' that something requires time & effort. All that Ghibli slop is already forgotten, despite saturating social media only a few days ago, because it so shallow. The story & characters & intent is what gives Ghibli films meaning & human resonance.
The problem with Bandcamp is neither hypothetical or weak. The problem is that its been sold twice, and is now owned by a company who attempted to fire anyone who tried to unionise, which is a red flag. Will bandcamp be sold again? Yes, very very likely. So that is exactly the problem.
First of all, "attempted to fire anyone who tried to unionise" is entirely made up. They laid off fully half the company; it wasn't targeted at all. Second, the "very likely" part about it being sold is hypothetical, and the follow-on effect of that being bad for artists is doubly hypothetical. As of right now, the service is exactly as it was back when it was "the anti-spotify" that everyone was in love with. It was owned by someone trying to make money before and it's owned by someone trying to make money now. If this is the dread enshittification, please enshittify all over me. Or admit that this isn't enshittification, it's just a fear of what might happen.
To add to this: one of the basic arguments about enshittification is that it happens as a result of services starting out by operating at a loss, which leads them to eventually need to shift the value proposition towards actually making the platform sustainable. Bandcamp built their service sustainably, achieving profitability back in 2012, so there is a lot less incentive to enshittify, which is borne out by the fact that the overall value prop hasn't changed in all that time.
