Voluntary payment platforms, such as Bandcamp and Patreon, arenotable because they challenge both the traditional music industry model, inwhich fans must pay for music in order to obtain access to it, and theassumption within classical economics that humans are purely self-interested,rational actors. Here, fan behavior on Bandcamp is analyzed in three studies:a quantitative comparison of Bandcamp and non-Bandcamp users, a qualitative and quantitative examination of how Bandcamp users assign valueto music and artists, and a quantitative analysis of Bandcamp transactions.Through this, we gain an understanding of Bandcamp users’ motivations forusing the platform to support artists as well as the factors that drive differentlevels of financial support. Furthermore, we establish the potential for voluntarypayments to scale to more artists and fans, as well as the limitations to scaling,if they were to be adopted more widely by the music industry and integratedinto the streaming ecosystem
