Discogs’ vibrant vinyl community is shattering
How Discogs built — and broke — a community of diehard music fans and sellers.
A home for music diehards has been fractured by increased fees that are pushing sellers and shoppers to other platforms.
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As a frequent Discogs user, this new fee change is so infuriating. I'm sure these changes aren't as big for US or EU-based buyers, but the shipping fees I get in Singapore were very large even before this change, usually 2 or 3 times the cost of the item itself. Nowadays, there are some sellers who flat out refuse to sell items to me, specifically because of the fees. And this is just with CDs and cassettes, which have smaller shipping costs than a 12" record...
The problem is, I don't really have any choice for getting used music. eBay has limited stock and even crazier shipping rates, especially if you want a specific edition of an album. I've heard talk of some sellers moving to Etsy, but if they have, they're not showing up. And the few physical stores left here mostly carry stock in mainstream albums. So I mostly have to suck it up if I want a rare album, and pay the exorbitant costs :/
My wife and I have just recently started to use Discogs, so we were unaware of the new fees and some of the problems associated with ordering. My wife has bought several LPs from the site, and hasn't had an issue, while I've only ordered one LP (also with no issue).
We have the luxury of having a few record stores in town with fairly large vinyl selections. The electronic record store I frequent also uses Discogs, however I haven't talked to the owner to see how these fees have impacted his experience as a seller. I'll have to remember to talk to him about it next time I'm visiting his store.