Prince Discovers That If You Charge People To Connect With You, You Actually Have To Connect

from the well-that-didn't-work dept

Fri, Apr 2nd 2010 5:29pm — Mike Masnick

If you've never seen Kevin Smith's long, but quite funny, explanation of his week of making a documentary for Prince, it's quite worth watching -- just to get a sense of "Prince World" and the way Prince will have big ideas that he starts, but never does much to follow through on. With that as background, it's really not surprising to read about the absolute disaster that his recent "fan club" business model experiment became:

The result, LotusFlow3r.com, resembled a galactic aquarium, featuring doodads like a rotating orb that played videos. The promise: fans who ponied up $77 for a year-long membership would receive the three new albums, plus an ensuing flow of exclusive content, like unreleased tracks and archival videos.

A year later, LotusFlow3r has gone dark, thousands of Prince's fans are very annoyed and Clay has been dismissed from Prince's kingdom almost as abruptly as he was invited in.

The mess got a lot more attention lately when a supposed "glitch" (uh, ok...) started automatically charging fans credit cards for membership renewals, despite the fact that the site had gone dormant and people had specifically asked not to have their membership renewed.

There was a point, a few years back, where it looked like Prince would be the first rockstar to really embrace these sorts of new business models. He definitely was doing all kinds of experiments that involved getting people to pay for scarcities, often while giving the music away for free. And many of the experiments looked like they were done in a way to better connect with fans. But it quickly became apparent that Prince was missing a big element in all of this, in that while he wanted to connect with fans and give them a reason to buy, he also wanted to be massively controlling about it.

The one thing that artists who are successfully embracing these models are discovering is that, in part, you have to go with the flow, and see where your fans take you. Part of the connecting is listening to the fans, rather than just telling them how they must enjoy your works. Prince has never been particularly good at that aspect of the fan relationship. We've talked about the value of improvisational business modeling, where you do regular experiments -- and Prince certainly does that, but at no point does he seem to pay attention to how the fans react to the improvisations.

In the end, he seems entirely focused on his own whims, and while that may be entertaining for himself, it appears to be pissing off an awful lot of fans. If you're Prince, and you've got fans to spare, perhaps that's fine. But it's hardly a model worth emulating.

But there's a bigger point here as well. If you're trying to use a CwF+RtB-style business model, you have to actually connect with fans in some manner. You can't just leave them high and dry. Is that difficult? Sure. Does it take work? Absolutely. But isn't that part of the point? The value that's built up from genuine connections is what makes these business models work. Taking people's money and then leaving them feeling empty handed may be the way the recording industry used to work, but it's not the path forward.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: cwf+rtb, kevin smith, prince

13 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

inc (profile), 2 Apr 2010 @ 6:22pm

maybe he is trying to see how much bullshit fan will take before they tell him to fuck off.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Blatant Coward (profile), 2 Apr 2010 @ 10:48pm

Steve Kurtz effect noted.
A couple of years ago comic author Steve Kurtz made a special clubhouse for his paying fans using a paid content distribution service called the Asset Bar. Fans paid $1.99 a month for access to the 'fanflow ' where they could talk and comment on extra content he posted there. For this, Assetbar had raised $1,170.97, all of which supposed to be donated to the Mike Wieringo Scholarship.
According to friends that I spoke with he made 3 updates. 2 of which were twitters that he really needed and promised to make more updates.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Jamesie (profile), 2 Apr 2010 @ 11:31pm

prince
you said a mouthfull.Right you are
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 3 Apr 2010 @ 4:10am

Screw Prince, the artist or whatever he calls himself today. I call him "@$$h0le"
[ link to this | view in thread ]
bigdogrmf (profile), 3 Apr 2010 @ 10:52am

Prince LotusBoar
My wife and I spent 5 minutes at the site when it launched, and were instantly bored. Not to mention paying a yearly subscription to be bored... we're huge fans, but please, Prince... there are so few of us actually willing to pay for what we could otherwise download for free, but cha got 2 deliver...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Malcolm, 3 Apr 2010 @ 11:16am

"...and see where your fans take you. Part of the connecting is listening to the fans, rather than just telling them how they must enjoy your works."

To be honest, Prince never misunderstood this aspect, he simply doesn't accept it. He knows that what his fans want are purchasable versions of his older concerts in video form, and purchasable versions of his older unreleased studio recordings in audio form. But Prince can't ever separate the business from the art...he always sees it as one (at least nowadays). So, he only offers his fans what is tickling his "artistic" fancy at the given moment, ignoring his superior works from yesteryear that his fans have either never seen/heard, or never seen/heard in official form. Having been a fan for many years (not sure I'd call myself one currently), I'd say there's not enough humble pie on planet Earth to get him to ever see it any other way, so he'll continue to disconnect from his fans as time goes on.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Suzanne Lainson (profile), 3 Apr 2010 @ 12:12pm

Creating wary fans
Although we know not every musician is like Prince, fans who have been burned by this particular subscription program or who have heard about are likely to be very resistant to subscribing to anything similar offered by another artist, at least not without seeing a track record in place and an easy way to cancel the deal if they aren't satisfied.

When there is so much experimentation in the new world of music, some ideas may falter before they get established because fans' first experiences have been unsatisfactory.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
J Frysinger, 3 Apr 2010 @ 5:15pm

Cheap Trick doing it right?
I watched a short interview with Cheap Trick on CNBC prior to their concert at SXSW 2010 in Austin. It sounds like perhaps they have the persona and relationship with their fans to pull this kind of thing off. They seem to epitomize going with the flow...

Your thoughts?

JF
[ link to this | view in thread ]
AC, 4 Apr 2010 @ 3:07am

Prince Jehova
Prince has been a "Jehovah's Witness" for quite a while now.

He carries his Bible with him everywhere he goes.

He has said he "feels guilty" about writing all them sexy tunes back in the 80's.

Not too guilty to take the money and run, it seems.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
GILLIAN, 26 Jun 2010 @ 7:38pm

PRINCE ROGERS NELSON
I LOVE THIS MAN, GOD'S CREATION NO MATTER WHAT HE DOES OR DOESNOT DO.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Kiama, 17 Mar 2011 @ 1:25pm

Re: Prince Jehova
Let him take the money. I love the ground he walks on. Maybe he needs the money to come up with new ideas. You fans know Prince. You should be used to it by now. As Prince said before "chill out, we can work something out. Remember he just wants you to understand his music. Go with him to paradise!!!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
kiama, 17 Mar 2011 @ 1:29pm

Prince said, I just can't believe all the things people say, 'Controversy.'
[ link to this | view in thread ]
kiama, 17 Mar 2011 @ 1:32pm

Re:
Come on! Do you think Prince would do that to his fans? Maybe he is just not trying to be mainstream. Who wants to hear the same pop music everyday with the same style? Appreciate him for who he is and the talents that he has to bestow upon the world.
[ link to this | view in thread ]