Wouldn’t it be nice if you were financially rewarded for knowing about cool music before the rest of the world caught on, and for telling others about it?
That’s the notion behind Amie Street, a music site that offers a unique progressive pricing structure that lets you save money for selecting music before it gets popular.
When a new song or album is added to the site it’s available for free or very cheap (the site doesn’t specify a maximum starting price).
The price only goes up as demand for a song increases (in terms of total downloads). The more attuned you are the cheaper your music prices will be.
And even if you’re late to an artist, the highest price a song can reach is 98 cents (one cent below the starting price for songs on an unnamed service started by a guy who favors mock turtlenecks).
The site also rewards users for recommending new music. If you recommend a song that happens to get popular, Amie Street will credit your account as more users download the track (the amount of credit you receive increases as the song gets more popular).
And, in a nod to its open-source philosophy, Amie Street encourages artists to upload their own music.
In other words, you can finally distribute that demo you’ve had in your desk drawer for years.