LinkedMusicians Can Use Your Help…

[peter]

Just a reminder. If you value a place where you can freely discuss your honest opinions of DAWs, sample libraries, VSTs and all things music, please consider supporting the site. We don’t run ads. Our largest affiliate partner brought in around $25 for the last quarter. It helps, but that doesn’t even come close to covering the site’s costs with service agreements with developers, hosting, security, and email. I’ve spent more than $3,000 on this site and email to date, and put in far more than 1,000 hours of work (the costs would have been much higher without the help of community members like @lamia6 and @doug, so consider this a shout out to them for their generosity and kindness).

KVR, GearSpace, and VI-Control are high-volume communities designed to optimize revenue from developers—musicians, composers, songwriters, engineers, and producers are the product. Cakewalk Forums is the support (and promotional outlet) for a $425 million software company. These communities have grown increasingly toxic and increasingly censor criticism of advertisers, some even allowing developer employees and contractors to shill. One of our members — a music journalist — shared with me how he was banned from one of these sites for sharing his negative opinion of one of their largest advertisers (a developer). I created LinkedMusicians to be a place that doesn’t accept toxic behavior and doesn’t put revenue from developers over the interests of musicians, composers, songwriters, engineers, and producers. I didn’t create it thinking it would ever reach the volume of the big sites and bring in six figures or more. I created it as a passion project based on my values and ideals about music, ethics, civility, and an appreciation for diversity in opinions, music, and people.

One of the important functions of this site is to be an advocate for users of developers’ products and services. That was epitomized when @jorge recently shared his negative experience with Karanyi and leveraged LinkedMusicians to be a platform for his voice. The developer also had an uncensored platform, but seemed irritated that his former customer was given the same access. Money didn’t buy him a megaphone at LinkedMusicians as it would at other communities. I knew that Jorge’s voice would be suppressed if he did the same post at VI-Control and other communities. His story moved me. I have been a Karanyi customer for several years, but reading about Jorge’s experience and watching how the company’s owner responded to him on this forum completely changed my opinion of the company. I admit, when Jorge first posted and I contacted Karanyi, I thought this was going to be a story where the company saw that they screwed up and made things right and the story would have a happy ending. When I saw that the owner of Karanyi had no interest in making things right, I wasn’t about to edit that. I wasn’t concerned that this guy would never advertise on LinkedMusicians. I didn’t care about his affiliate program. I cared about fairness, and Karanyi making things right with a customer and LM member that they wronged. They didn’t and everyone can see that without any editing.

If you believe in LinkedMusicians’ mission, in the idea of a non-toxic community for musicians and producers, in the idea of a community where the people who buy DAWs, plugins, and sample libraries won’t have their voices muted by the developers who sell to them, or even if you simply appreciate the great deals shared at LinkedMusicians, chipping in would greatly help this site to continue. You can contribute using PayPal link below:

https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=DGWFE3HE6F7NW

LinkedMusicians Founder. Your friend who keeps the beat.

Check out my music. 

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[peter]

I just added a thank you page to show my appreciation for our financial supporters. I am very grateful to all of you for your support and encouragement.

– Peter

Thanks for your support.

LinkedMusicians Founder. Your friend who keeps the beat.

Check out my music. 

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