"Discogs’ vibrant vinyl community is shattering"
October 7, 2023 12:16 PM Subscribe
Underlying the sellers’ complaints is a kind of dismay, the feeling that what had previously been a safe haven for nerds to buy and sell $2 records is being threatened — that one more corner of the internet that wasn’t yet a glossy behemoth designed to subsume and capitalize on your personal information was about to collapse.Natalie Weiner writes about the fears that record catalog site Discogs is starting to enshittify itself.
Banning vinyl bootlegs was a bd idea.
posted by Ideefixe at 12:33 PM on October 7, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by Ideefixe at 12:33 PM on October 7, 2023 [4 favorites]
Well, they're fixing the shady part. In the future, you'll be able to be sure that *some* millionaire *somewhere* is being further enriched by the people participating on the site. No more shadiness!
posted by tigrrrlily at 12:45 PM on October 7, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by tigrrrlily at 12:45 PM on October 7, 2023 [7 favorites]
I buy a lot of used (less new, but some of that too) records and CDs on Discogs, and it's probably the most legit place online to do it.
Sellers and buyers have presences going back for years, everyone understands the importance of accurate identification, conservative grading, and well-protected shipping, and it generally just works really well.
Then again, I've never sold anything on there, and it's unfortunate that they're trying to squeeze more out of the transactions (and pushing a mediocre app) instead of improving the site and expanding the userbase.
posted by box at 12:49 PM on October 7, 2023 [10 favorites]
Sellers and buyers have presences going back for years, everyone understands the importance of accurate identification, conservative grading, and well-protected shipping, and it generally just works really well.
Then again, I've never sold anything on there, and it's unfortunate that they're trying to squeeze more out of the transactions (and pushing a mediocre app) instead of improving the site and expanding the userbase.
posted by box at 12:49 PM on October 7, 2023 [10 favorites]
Hippybear, I used to use discogs a fair bit to buy out of print CDs and records for relatively obscure metal bands. All the sellers I bought from were either private collectors or small record shops using it as an alternative online market. It really wasn't too different from using ebay to purchase other things.
I stopped buying physical media a few years ago because a) we no longer have a car that can play tapes or CDs and b) I felt bad about the amount of plastic that is in CD packaging.
posted by TheKaijuCommuter at 12:50 PM on October 7, 2023 [6 favorites]
I stopped buying physical media a few years ago because a) we no longer have a car that can play tapes or CDs and b) I felt bad about the amount of plastic that is in CD packaging.
posted by TheKaijuCommuter at 12:50 PM on October 7, 2023 [6 favorites]
Ya just to correct a bit from the first comment, discogs has been a pretty dang reliable market for years, with many reputable sellers around the globe. I have friends who run businesses off it and I’ve bought records from many folks in many places with only minor issues.
posted by wemayfreeze at 12:58 PM on October 7, 2023 [8 favorites]
posted by wemayfreeze at 12:58 PM on October 7, 2023 [8 favorites]
I'm honestly only speaking about my perception of it. I'm not trying to denigrate the site in any way, just how I'd seen it.
posted by hippybear at 12:59 PM on October 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by hippybear at 12:59 PM on October 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
I will say, as a database, they are heads, shoulders, nipples, belly button, and probably knees above everyone else.
posted by hippybear
I think you missed a spot. :)
posted by Splunge at 12:59 PM on October 7, 2023
posted by hippybear
I think you missed a spot. :)
posted by Splunge at 12:59 PM on October 7, 2023
If you're provoking me to say that Discogs' database rocks out with its cock out, I will say that.
posted by hippybear at 1:02 PM on October 7, 2023 [18 favorites]
posted by hippybear at 1:02 PM on October 7, 2023 [18 favorites]
Someone should tell Discogs that the world doesn't need another eBay. (Well it does, but one at least a few steps up from the current crappy version).
posted by gtrwolf at 1:09 PM on October 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by gtrwolf at 1:09 PM on October 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
> I stopped buying physical media a few years ago because […] I felt bad about the amount of plastic that is in CD packaging.That's one of the reasons I mostly buy second-hand CDs.
posted by farlukar at 1:18 PM on October 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
Sometimes when I want to get really depressed I look at Discogs to see how much my old weird acid house, techno and deep house vinyl would be worth today. At one point I had like four to five thousand records including a bunch of rare white labels and DJ tools and megamix style 12" dubs, and I've seen a whole bunch of those records go for multiple hundreds of dollars each.
While at 10 bucks a pop for a 12" when they were new was a sizeable investment of my disposable income, I picked up a whole lot of it in bargain bins for as little as 25 cents a record, or whole crates for a few dollars. If I went through all the effort of selling it piece by piece today I could have put up a sizeable down payment on property or a house. That collection would probably be worth 10x what I paid for it, especially considering how cheap I bought a lot of it back when vinyl was "dying" in the 90s.
And I wasn't even that bad as a record collector of dance music and general house/techno related things.
I had a DJ friend who had his entire room packed with rare vinyl and it was something like 20,000 pieces. We used to joke about how he could have bought a house with all of that but back then we laughed about it and just kept partying.
And then he had most of the collection stolen in a bad shared living situation. I'm sure he's having intrusive thoughts about it today.
That being said I don't really miss the physical media.
I stopped collecting physical music pretty much as soon as MP3s and digital DJing became a thing. Being able to fit an entire collection of dance music on a tiny thumb drive is much nicer and saner than taking a 1-2 thousand dollars worth of records out to some dodgy desert party and hauling 100 pound record crates around and worrying about them getting stolen or damaged in the sand and heat. If you were a DJ back in the vinyl only days it was basically impossible to chill and actually enjoy a party that you were playing at because you spent the whole time hovering around your boat anchor of a record crate or bag and trying to keep it in the shade and out of harm's way.
posted by loquacious at 1:32 PM on October 7, 2023 [9 favorites]
While at 10 bucks a pop for a 12" when they were new was a sizeable investment of my disposable income, I picked up a whole lot of it in bargain bins for as little as 25 cents a record, or whole crates for a few dollars. If I went through all the effort of selling it piece by piece today I could have put up a sizeable down payment on property or a house. That collection would probably be worth 10x what I paid for it, especially considering how cheap I bought a lot of it back when vinyl was "dying" in the 90s.
And I wasn't even that bad as a record collector of dance music and general house/techno related things.
I had a DJ friend who had his entire room packed with rare vinyl and it was something like 20,000 pieces. We used to joke about how he could have bought a house with all of that but back then we laughed about it and just kept partying.
And then he had most of the collection stolen in a bad shared living situation. I'm sure he's having intrusive thoughts about it today.
That being said I don't really miss the physical media.
I stopped collecting physical music pretty much as soon as MP3s and digital DJing became a thing. Being able to fit an entire collection of dance music on a tiny thumb drive is much nicer and saner than taking a 1-2 thousand dollars worth of records out to some dodgy desert party and hauling 100 pound record crates around and worrying about them getting stolen or damaged in the sand and heat. If you were a DJ back in the vinyl only days it was basically impossible to chill and actually enjoy a party that you were playing at because you spent the whole time hovering around your boat anchor of a record crate or bag and trying to keep it in the shade and out of harm's way.
posted by loquacious at 1:32 PM on October 7, 2023 [9 favorites]
I buy old music there that I can't get elsewhere. Other than the odd bit of vinyl that might be a tad scratchier than I'd like, it has worked well for me. Surprised to see it described as sketchy, although the interface maybe feels a bit spartan, but so what?
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 1:34 PM on October 7, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 1:34 PM on October 7, 2023 [4 favorites]
I don't like to buy records online because I enjoy the thrill of the hunt, so that aspect of the site doesn't really impact me (I've only bought two, both through Discogs, in the last 15 years, and both transactions went just fine), but yeah...the app kinda sucks compared to the website.
posted by The Card Cheat at 1:57 PM on October 7, 2023
posted by The Card Cheat at 1:57 PM on October 7, 2023
> Someone should tell Discogs that the world doesn't need another eBay
Discogs is within its own niche so it's vastly superior to eBay for purchasing music in physical form as you can be confident that a seller's feedback rating *only* relates to them selling music in a physical form and not a load of other unrelated stuff like on eBay. I'm always apprehensive about eBay where "mint condition" can mean anything from "unopened' to "I dropped it once and the dog shat on it, but it looks OK”. Sure Discogs has this problem as well, but the seller's history will reveal these problems relatively easy.
The one problem, not mentioned in the article, is that Discogs has fed into the "flippers" market. Events like Record Store Day (RSD) have fueled this - people will line up to purchase limited editions to immediately list them on Discogs at inflate prices: "flippers". It's so bad that some people will even pre-emptively list items before they have purchased them. That really sucks. An example from this year is this one. Just take a look at the absurd prices and the comments.
I always make a point of visiting local record stores whenever we travel somewhere, but there's stuff in my wantlist that I'm never going to find there. Discogs has been great in filling in the gaps.
The article itself touches on some things that are pretty lame: charging fees on shipping costs? Did they figure out that a lot of sellers were inflating that to rake in more profit? Can't think why else they would do it other than a money grab.
The redesign is so-so. It's typical a web 2.whatever-the-fuck-we-are-at look of more space but less information density. I'm sure it's more to do with modernising their frontend technologies and is tied in with that and will eventually feed into a better mobile app experience.
posted by lawrencium at 2:21 PM on October 7, 2023 [7 favorites]
Discogs is within its own niche so it's vastly superior to eBay for purchasing music in physical form as you can be confident that a seller's feedback rating *only* relates to them selling music in a physical form and not a load of other unrelated stuff like on eBay. I'm always apprehensive about eBay where "mint condition" can mean anything from "unopened' to "I dropped it once and the dog shat on it, but it looks OK”. Sure Discogs has this problem as well, but the seller's history will reveal these problems relatively easy.
The one problem, not mentioned in the article, is that Discogs has fed into the "flippers" market. Events like Record Store Day (RSD) have fueled this - people will line up to purchase limited editions to immediately list them on Discogs at inflate prices: "flippers". It's so bad that some people will even pre-emptively list items before they have purchased them. That really sucks. An example from this year is this one. Just take a look at the absurd prices and the comments.
I always make a point of visiting local record stores whenever we travel somewhere, but there's stuff in my wantlist that I'm never going to find there. Discogs has been great in filling in the gaps.
The article itself touches on some things that are pretty lame: charging fees on shipping costs? Did they figure out that a lot of sellers were inflating that to rake in more profit? Can't think why else they would do it other than a money grab.
The redesign is so-so. It's typical a web 2.whatever-the-fuck-we-are-at look of more space but less information density. I'm sure it's more to do with modernising their frontend technologies and is tied in with that and will eventually feed into a better mobile app experience.
posted by lawrencium at 2:21 PM on October 7, 2023 [7 favorites]
I feel like people are misdirecting their anger. Any platform that charges less than 10 percent in fees is an extremely good deal for sellers. Due to US financial regulations every platform connecting buyers and sellers must also be an anti-money-laundering enforcement agency, and due to increased credit card scams must also have an anti-fraud arm. A dedicated site like discogs will always fall behind compared to platforms for everything like eBay and Amazon.
Etsy is another place people buy vinyl, and they charge like 30% in fees.
I think every niche selling platform is having similar issues after the post pandemic price slump in collectibles. TCGPlayer is also getting criticism for similar practices, they are to magic the gathering cards what discogs is for vinyl.
posted by hermanubis at 2:35 PM on October 7, 2023 [14 favorites]
Etsy is another place people buy vinyl, and they charge like 30% in fees.
I think every niche selling platform is having similar issues after the post pandemic price slump in collectibles. TCGPlayer is also getting criticism for similar practices, they are to magic the gathering cards what discogs is for vinyl.
posted by hermanubis at 2:35 PM on October 7, 2023 [14 favorites]
I feel like people are misdirecting their anger.
Ya I don't know enough here but a cursory look at eBay's fees show a 12.35% seller charge on every vinyl record sale, which includes shipping (and doesn't include a listing fee, which maybe is significant if you need to relist every month? not clear to me how that works). The new discogs fees (according to the article) are 9%, now including shipping.
I'm sympathetic to all frustrations with the change – you may have had a successful operation under the old regime that can't survive under the new, and that's going to suck regardless of how reasonable the changes are. But it's not clear that Discogs is doing Big Bad things here, vs aligning with rates that are standard in the industry, and in fact a few percentage points below.
posted by wemayfreeze at 3:05 PM on October 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
Ya I don't know enough here but a cursory look at eBay's fees show a 12.35% seller charge on every vinyl record sale, which includes shipping (and doesn't include a listing fee, which maybe is significant if you need to relist every month? not clear to me how that works). The new discogs fees (according to the article) are 9%, now including shipping.
I'm sympathetic to all frustrations with the change – you may have had a successful operation under the old regime that can't survive under the new, and that's going to suck regardless of how reasonable the changes are. But it's not clear that Discogs is doing Big Bad things here, vs aligning with rates that are standard in the industry, and in fact a few percentage points below.
posted by wemayfreeze at 3:05 PM on October 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
Some of the prices on Discogs look so absurdly high (e.g., Low Price: $3.99, Median Price: $5.99, High Price: $3,725.98) that I think some people must be using the site to launder money. Given how crazypants the world is now, I'd be surprised if people aren't using the site to launder money. And I can imagine Discogs would have nothing to do with it, but not necessarily much they can do to stop it.
posted by jonp72 at 3:26 PM on October 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by jonp72 at 3:26 PM on October 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
The article itself touches on some things that are pretty lame: charging fees on shipping costs? Did they figure out that a lot of sellers were inflating that to rake in more profit? Can't think why else they would do it other than a money grab.
I assume they did it for the same reason eBay did it many years ago:
Seller One has Item X for $40 plus $10 shipping.
Seller Two has Item X for $5 plus $40 shipping.
Buyer buys from Seller Two because overall it's cheaper, but eBay gets screwed because they only get a cut of the item price.
***
I use Discogs every day, sometimes for many hours a day, because I've made my living selling records for almost 20 years. However, I do not sell on Discogs or anywhere online, so they do not make a dime from my sales and I don't pay them a dime for my use.
I do sometimes contribute to their database, though. Information and photos.
I will say that there are TONS of mistakes in that database and they rarely get fixed.
Though it is undoubtedly a useful site, I'd say on the whole it's done more damage to the vinyl industry than it's done good. I feel very similarly towards it, its champions, and its owners, as I do to Record Store Day and its champions and owners.
In addition, many people take Discog's info as gospel. I remember once selling someone a first Canadian pressing of a Hendrix album at a very good price. He brought it back the next day and said I was wrong and it was not a first pressing and showed me the entry of the first Canadian pressing according to Discogs. When I pointed out that the site was wrong, and why, showing how I was correct, he refused to believe me and demanded a refund, which I gladly gave him knowing I could sell the record to a more informed buyer.
The pressing was so uncommon that no one had ever added it to Discogs. He took its absence as a sign that it was unremarkable. I'm sure this happens many times in record stores across the world. It's like saying something isn't real or hasn't happened because it's not on Wikipedia.
posted by dobbs at 3:53 PM on October 7, 2023 [14 favorites]
I assume they did it for the same reason eBay did it many years ago:
Seller One has Item X for $40 plus $10 shipping.
Seller Two has Item X for $5 plus $40 shipping.
Buyer buys from Seller Two because overall it's cheaper, but eBay gets screwed because they only get a cut of the item price.
***
I use Discogs every day, sometimes for many hours a day, because I've made my living selling records for almost 20 years. However, I do not sell on Discogs or anywhere online, so they do not make a dime from my sales and I don't pay them a dime for my use.
I do sometimes contribute to their database, though. Information and photos.
I will say that there are TONS of mistakes in that database and they rarely get fixed.
Though it is undoubtedly a useful site, I'd say on the whole it's done more damage to the vinyl industry than it's done good. I feel very similarly towards it, its champions, and its owners, as I do to Record Store Day and its champions and owners.
In addition, many people take Discog's info as gospel. I remember once selling someone a first Canadian pressing of a Hendrix album at a very good price. He brought it back the next day and said I was wrong and it was not a first pressing and showed me the entry of the first Canadian pressing according to Discogs. When I pointed out that the site was wrong, and why, showing how I was correct, he refused to believe me and demanded a refund, which I gladly gave him knowing I could sell the record to a more informed buyer.
The pressing was so uncommon that no one had ever added it to Discogs. He took its absence as a sign that it was unremarkable. I'm sure this happens many times in record stores across the world. It's like saying something isn't real or hasn't happened because it's not on Wikipedia.
posted by dobbs at 3:53 PM on October 7, 2023 [14 favorites]
Meanwhile Bandcamp is being sold by Epic to another company called Songtradr barely a year after buying it, and the stories from workers during the transition have made it sound like pure chaos. This stuff from Discogs doesn't sound as catastrophic right now, but given how the tech industry has progressed this year, it could be just around the corner and we'd never know.
2023 has been a truly shitty year for the internet, and all this just seems to be the latest example of such.
posted by chrominance at 5:38 PM on October 7, 2023 [7 favorites]
2023 has been a truly shitty year for the internet, and all this just seems to be the latest example of such.
posted by chrominance at 5:38 PM on October 7, 2023 [7 favorites]
The Bandcamp thing is awful. The workforce unionized and then the company was sold before first labor contracts could be negotiated and now the new owner is doing everything possible to break the union.
posted by hippybear at 6:01 PM on October 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by hippybear at 6:01 PM on October 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
We need more cooperatively run software shops.
posted by kaibutsu at 6:14 PM on October 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by kaibutsu at 6:14 PM on October 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
I will say, as a database, they are heads, shoulders, nipples, belly button, and probably knees above everyone else.
posted by hippybear
I think you missed a spot. :)
posted by Splunge at 2:59 PM on October 7 [+] [!]
I can think of a couple and there's a band probably being sold on discogs with the 2 word name featuring that. The singer is dead, and good riddance, but anyways. This combined with (as mentioned above) the news about Bandcamp is awful.
Was enshittification already the word of the year last year/ if so it should also be for this year.
posted by symbioid at 8:09 PM on October 7, 2023
posted by hippybear
I think you missed a spot. :)
posted by Splunge at 2:59 PM on October 7 [+] [!]
I can think of a couple and there's a band probably being sold on discogs with the 2 word name featuring that. The singer is dead, and good riddance, but anyways. This combined with (as mentioned above) the news about Bandcamp is awful.
Was enshittification already the word of the year last year/ if so it should also be for this year.
posted by symbioid at 8:09 PM on October 7, 2023
Was enshittification already the word of the year last year/ if so it should also be for this year.
i think it's been the word of the year for at least the last decade. maybe two.
posted by Bwentman at 8:48 PM on October 7, 2023
i think it's been the word of the year for at least the last decade. maybe two.
posted by Bwentman at 8:48 PM on October 7, 2023
I buy on discogs and have not had a single bad experience. Less well known, often East European classical composers, whose works are rarely to be found on Ebay, Amaon etc, I have found there at keen prices and in a condition exactly as presented. It's been good to me. I love it.
posted by dutchrick at 3:17 AM on October 8, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by dutchrick at 3:17 AM on October 8, 2023 [7 favorites]
My experience with Discogs is purely as a buyer. I started collecting records about a year and a half ago and it's been a fantastic way for me to buy from small record stores from across the country (that is, Canada) who have stock that my own local stores don't carry. I've yet to have a bad experience as a buyer, and I appreciate being able to buy from reliable sellers who care enough about records to rate them accurately and to pack and ship them properly.
There are a few stores I know of that are big enough to build their own infrastructure around selling online, but I imagine for a lot of stores that's not something in their skill set, or something they have time and energy to manage. (One seller I've bought a few things from doesn't have storefront, for instance, and I have the strong impression it's very much a side hustle, but they are great to deal with.) I don't imagine it's an easy business to be in from a seller side or from an infrastructure provider side. Nobody's getting into this game because they see it as a path to incredible wealth, I'm sure—it's very much a passion play, but it still needs to be viable.
I do use the database function to track my collection and have tried to use it to identify better pressings of some albums, but I don't have an audiophile set up so some of that is probably lost on me.
posted by synecdoche at 4:10 AM on October 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
There are a few stores I know of that are big enough to build their own infrastructure around selling online, but I imagine for a lot of stores that's not something in their skill set, or something they have time and energy to manage. (One seller I've bought a few things from doesn't have storefront, for instance, and I have the strong impression it's very much a side hustle, but they are great to deal with.) I don't imagine it's an easy business to be in from a seller side or from an infrastructure provider side. Nobody's getting into this game because they see it as a path to incredible wealth, I'm sure—it's very much a passion play, but it still needs to be viable.
I do use the database function to track my collection and have tried to use it to identify better pressings of some albums, but I don't have an audiophile set up so some of that is probably lost on me.
posted by synecdoche at 4:10 AM on October 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
Nobody's getting into this game because they see it as a path to incredible wealth,
Many, many are. One of the biggest problems with Discogs is the number of people who've become aware of it and have no prior history of selling or handling vinyl and who do not know how to grade. In fact, the site is so ubiquitous that it has made the industry standards of grading somewhat useless. There are countless items for sale on there that say things like "Near mint but for a small scratch on two tracks" or "VG+ except one track that skips" and such. The site has rendered grading-standard language so useless that I do not even bother with that language. I literally just describe how everything plays ('non audible mark on side one' or 'small click for two rotations on track 2', 'cover has minor wear but is intact,' etc.). Listing things with VG+ or other gradings just leads to questions whereas my language does not.
Almost 10 years ago I listed one record on Discogs — a rare Canadian private press (Conrad Benjamin's Saturn). A guy in Canada bought it for $400. It was sealed stock, brand new, never been opened it. Shipped it to him and he claimed it was all scratched and demanded a refund. I told him I had another sealed copy which I'd be happy to open on camera for him, inspect, and then ship as a replacement. He declined, which seemed very suspicious to me and that he was trying to scam me. I declined the refund. He reported me. Discogs siezed my acccount and Paypal locked me out and refused to allow me to use their service unless I refunded. I said if he ships it back, I'll refund. He did, and when I opened the record it was clearly a used copy that he'd stuck in my new cover and sent back. When I read deep into the buyer's feedback there were other people claiming he'd done the same thing to them.
Sending this info to Paypal and Discogs did not help. They sided with the buyer. I refunded his money and have never used Discogs to sell again. They got their cut, the buyer got a mint copy of a rare record, and I was out $400.
posted by dobbs at 7:39 AM on October 8, 2023 [12 favorites]
Many, many are. One of the biggest problems with Discogs is the number of people who've become aware of it and have no prior history of selling or handling vinyl and who do not know how to grade. In fact, the site is so ubiquitous that it has made the industry standards of grading somewhat useless. There are countless items for sale on there that say things like "Near mint but for a small scratch on two tracks" or "VG+ except one track that skips" and such. The site has rendered grading-standard language so useless that I do not even bother with that language. I literally just describe how everything plays ('non audible mark on side one' or 'small click for two rotations on track 2', 'cover has minor wear but is intact,' etc.). Listing things with VG+ or other gradings just leads to questions whereas my language does not.
Almost 10 years ago I listed one record on Discogs — a rare Canadian private press (Conrad Benjamin's Saturn). A guy in Canada bought it for $400. It was sealed stock, brand new, never been opened it. Shipped it to him and he claimed it was all scratched and demanded a refund. I told him I had another sealed copy which I'd be happy to open on camera for him, inspect, and then ship as a replacement. He declined, which seemed very suspicious to me and that he was trying to scam me. I declined the refund. He reported me. Discogs siezed my acccount and Paypal locked me out and refused to allow me to use their service unless I refunded. I said if he ships it back, I'll refund. He did, and when I opened the record it was clearly a used copy that he'd stuck in my new cover and sent back. When I read deep into the buyer's feedback there were other people claiming he'd done the same thing to them.
Sending this info to Paypal and Discogs did not help. They sided with the buyer. I refunded his money and have never used Discogs to sell again. They got their cut, the buyer got a mint copy of a rare record, and I was out $400.
posted by dobbs at 7:39 AM on October 8, 2023 [12 favorites]
As other commenters have stated, I find the rhetoric that the community is shattering to be a bit overblown.
Yet, I am not a frequent user of the marketplace: I buy or sell maybe 1-2 items a year and seeing this many sellers for a limited Taylor swift release with no or very few ratings is discouraging (scammers or just plain old price gouging). (on the other hand, I've sold about a dozen items on there and only 1 has ever left me seller feedback).
Discogs is sometimes missing musical works, but it's by far the most comprehensive informational source out there (musicbrainz in a far distant second) to learn about any published musical work. For those that want a source whose data is liberally licensed, community foundation owned, musicbrainz can be more up your alley although nothing is sold there, it's just an information database.
I end up going on discogs maybe once a week to look for more information about an artist's discography and when I buy a random cd from the thrift store that's not on there, I'll add it; I've probably added 75 or so over the years.
Personally, my biggest annoyance is their rule that you cannot upload album art from the artist's website or bandcamp page; you must literally scan it using a computer or take a photograph of it; preventing this rule is largely just creating extra work for contributors; staff claims it's because they're afraid of being sued.
posted by fizzix at 9:56 AM on October 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
I used to buy an absurd number of records back in the early eighties. I started using Discogs a few years ago to keep track of my collection (such as it is). The estimated valuation of the ones I've registered seems a bit outlandish. I have no plan to buy or sell on the site, but the pricing estimates are at least amusing.
I find the track listings useful. I use software to "rip" vinyl to file, and the program can use the Diskogs database to identify the tracks.
posted by Surely This at 10:17 AM on October 8, 2023
I find the track listings useful. I use software to "rip" vinyl to file, and the program can use the Diskogs database to identify the tracks.
posted by Surely This at 10:17 AM on October 8, 2023
The estimated valuation of the ones I've registered seems a bit outlandish
To my knowledge no listings on Discogs are "estimated valuations," but, rather, prices for which things have already sold.
posted by dobbs at 11:06 AM on October 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
To my knowledge no listings on Discogs are "estimated valuations," but, rather, prices for which things have already sold.
posted by dobbs at 11:06 AM on October 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
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I'd never buy anything through them because their sales side has always felt more, for lack of a better word but not meaning all the implications, shade to me. To be honest, I don't buy much used music online at all, but when I have I've always gone directly to a seller's website.
I will say, as a database, they are heads, shoulders, nipples, belly button, and probably knees above everyone else.
posted by hippybear at 12:28 PM on October 7, 2023 [9 favorites]