This is very true. One of the first artists I noticed doing this was a rapper, Curren$y. All the mixtapes were free on Datpiff.com (major throwback) and the tours / Merch were the $$$ makers.
This also allowed artists to go fully independent and keep all their profits.
Added into the mix now are independent vinyl / cd / tape makers who the artists partner with on Physical music releases. Yes, physicals are back in a major way thanks to platforms like Bandcamp.
Even without physical media, I'd rather pay for a copy of the music I can "own" (I.e. like a physical CD) from Bandcamp as the revenue the artist gets is _significantly_ higher than a dozen streams of the same album on Spotify.
At the end of the day, I want the artist to continue producing music, and prefer to find a channel by which they get the most revenue.
IMHO Bandcamp is one of the best things to happen to the music industry in the last decade. Love it!
yeah, Datpiff, worldstar, HHWW, etc... these sites were all at the forefront of this paradigm shift for backpack hip hop and rap. Hardcore and punk genres had similar approaches with BandCamp, PureVolume, and even MySpace, and if you actually look at punk and rap they have really interesting overlaps in these areas. Hip hop going independent was a major shift from the established late 90's/early 2000's tradition of signing with a label.
The Dave Matthews Band had a very permissive bootleg policy (bootlegs are fine, we'll even help you place microphones for the best quality, you just can't sell the bootlegs) which was important to the early popularity of the band.
This also allowed artists to go fully independent and keep all their profits.
Added into the mix now are independent vinyl / cd / tape makers who the artists partner with on Physical music releases. Yes, physicals are back in a major way thanks to platforms like Bandcamp.
*edited for a grammatical change.