Thread by @MikeSimonetti

i cant believe there isnt a music journalist out there documenting the fall of discogs. its fascinating watching it happen in real time.

sorry fell asleep. ill try to break it down. the guy from vinyl me please was announced as discogs CEO. if you know anything about VMP, you will know how poorly it is run. they remove their negative instagram comments, but trust me- it is a shit show there

around the same time discogs laid off a huge chunk of staff, about 70%. if you try to open a support request, it can take up to 2 months to get a reply. They also do not have any phone support, which is absolutely insane in this day and age. They are working w a skeleton crew

while this was happening there was a sudden deluge of scam accounts,and still are actually.The scam accts basically took over dormant accounts and started listing stuff very cheap,unsuspecting buyer sends money,seller disappears w money. this is a major issue at discogs currently

it does not seem like the new CEO has a handle on these scam accounts. instead of combatting that, discogs decides to raise their selling fees, and more importantly,charge a fee on the shipping cost, along with the item itself

marketed by discogs as a way to "fight fee avoidance" this was unpopular obviously, and seen as a cash grab. users were forced to pass the cost onto the buyer, and raise their prices. sales have slowed for many.

discogs sent out a very unpopular email to sellers instructing users how to raise their prices and pass the fee increase along to the buyer. Since then, sales have come to a halt for many.

this is problematic, seeing as discogs is how stores dictate the prices for the records they sell. Suddenly everyone is raising their prices which means eventually prices go up in stores. More money in fees for discogs. its like "insider trading" but for idiots.

Discogs adding fees to shipping was a terrible idea. They basicially leveled the playing field with Ebay. discogs users have began selling more on ebay since the fees are the same, and the cust service is better, and becsuse there are millions more users on ebay than discogs

this is problematic for other reasons though. For one, all discogs had to do was add a cap on shipping to stop this fee avoidance. It was seen as a huge ebay style cash grab handed down by the new CEO. A way to clean house as they say.

Also, whether you like to admit it or not - Covid is over. People are leaving the house now and spending their money on other things- like $25 cocktails for example. There isnt as much disposable income out there for records like there were post covid

also the USPS raised shipping this week, forcing sellers to raise shipping. Also VATs went up as well. Governments are implementing changes on taxes as well, forcing small sellers to register and pay their share. Its a perfect storm, not to mention discogs being tone deaf

the discogs website itself has been a shit show for years. it is constantly down or very slow. The search is a nightmare, the layout is terrible. It hasnt changed in years, and there is no comms from the company itself, and if there is an issue, it takes months to get resolution

if you go to the discogs forums, you will see nothing but anger and confusion. granted any forum is a hellscape these days but discogs is pretty grim. example: discogs.com/forum/thread/1…

The final thing that needs to be stated about discogs is that the actual databse is all user driven- years and years of work compiling a database- all done for FREE by users.

Discogs found a way to monetize this, and have offered barely anything in return to the people who have essentially made the company millions of dollars, a company that many small businesses depend on for their prices (unfortunately)...

I suggest you visit their forums to learn more. Its a bunch of angry men on there, but you canget a sense of the desperation some people are feeling

i think what will happen is:
1. discogs will be sold to a very large company like livenation, amazon, spotify, or a hedge fund (most likely)
2. discogs will charge a subscription to use their services like search, sales history, collections, wish lists.

The only viable solution here is to gauge people for more money. Vinyl sales are slowing for everyone, there are simply too many new releases out there. companies like vinyl me please are to blame, and its no wonder discogs hired that guy to run them into the ground

there are other things i did not mention that adds to the nightmare that is discogs.. the dreaded "paypal partner fee", or not being able to refund customers, or paypal keeping fees after refunding people. its a huuuge mess over there. they can easily remedy this by communicating

here is a crazy forum thread regarding the fee increases... discogs.com/forum/thread/1…

finally, it has become the new normal to charge $7-7.50 to ship one record domestically media mail in the USA. USPS raised media mail to $3.90, factor in mailers, and supplies and crap. overseas can be upwards of $25. discogs now takes a cut of that. very scummy move by discogs