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DMO still holds Scrybe’s all-time independent Scryber record, but Just The Empress has climbed to No. 2 behind Ye. With Version 3 launching today, a new kind of battle for fan support is beginning.
For years, independent artists have been given essentially the same advice.
Get more streams.
Get on more playlists.
Increase your monthly listeners.
Grow your followers.
Go viral.
Then do it again.
But as Scrybe Streaming officially launches Version 3 today on iOS and Android, the emerging streaming platform is pushing a very different message into the music industry:
Maybe independent artists have been watching the wrong numbers.
Scrybe isn’t telling artists to stop wanting streams.
It’s asking them to stop confusing streams with people.
Because 100,000 streams don’t walk into a concert.
Streams don’t buy merchandise.
Streams don’t tell five friends about a new artist.
Streams don’t send messages.
Streams don’t decide to support an artist through the difficult years before everyone else discovers them.
People do.
And Scrybe has built Version 3 around that distinction.
The Streaming Era Taught Artists to Think Like Algorithms
Modern artists can recite their analytics almost instinctively.
Monthly listeners.
Spotify streams.
YouTube views.
TikTok views.
Instagram followers.
Engagement rates.
Everything has become a number.
The problem, according to Scrybe founder and CEO Christian Phyfier, is that somewhere along the way artists began seeing the number instead of the human being responsible for it.
“Artists have spent years being taught how to get more streams,” Phyfier said. “But streams don’t build careers by themselves. People do. We built Version 3 around remembering that.”
That philosophy has become the centerpiece of Scrybe’s new campaign:
It’s people.
It sounds almost ridiculously simple.
That’s intentional.
Every stream is a person taking an action.
Scrybe wants artists thinking about what happens after that action.
What Is a Scryber Worth?
Scrybe’s biggest difference from conventional streaming platforms is its direct-to-creator subscription model.
Instead of only streaming an artist’s music, listeners can become that creator’s Scryber.
Creator subscriptions can cost as little as $0.50 per month.
The numbers aren’t designed to sound enormous.
They’re designed to become enormous to the artist.
If 100 people subscribe at $0.50, that’s $50 in monthly subscription revenue before Scrybe’s platform share.
1,000 people represent $500.
10,000 represent $5,000.
Scrybe allocates 80% of creator-generated subscription revenue to creators and retains 20% when earnings are withdrawn.
Suddenly, an independent artist has another question to ask.
Not:
How do I get one million streams?
But:
How do I find 1,000 people who actually care about my music?
Those are two very different career strategies.
One Million Streams vs. 1,000 People
That’s where Scrybe’s argument gets interesting.
For years, independent artists have celebrated increasingly massive streaming milestones.
100,000 streams.
500,000 streams.
One million streams.
And they should.
Getting a million people to press play—or a smaller number of people to press play repeatedly—is an accomplishment.
But the economic reality behind that number can feel considerably less impressive than the screenshot.
Scrybe isn’t trying to convince artists that streams have no value.
Discovery matters.
Reach matters.
Virality matters.
The company’s argument is that discovery and monetization don’t have to be the same thing.
An artist could use traditional platforms, social media, live performances and virtually anywhere else to get discovered.
Then the real question begins:
What percentage of those people can you turn into your people?
People who come back.
People who subscribe.
People who buy tickets.
People who purchase merchandise.
People who share releases.
People who support the next project before knowing whether the rest of the world will care.
That’s the audience Scrybe wants artists to start measuring.
Ye Is on Scrybe. But the Independent Artists May Be the Bigger Story.
The biggest name associated with Scrybe’s early ecosystem is impossible to ignore.
Ye has music on the platform and currently sits at the top of Scrybe’s active Scryber standings.
For an emerging streaming company, having an artist of Ye’s magnitude inside the ecosystem naturally attracts attention.
But the more interesting test of Scrybe’s model may be happening underneath him.
Because that’s where independent artists are beginning to compete.
DMO established Scrybe’s all-time record for the most Scrybers accumulated by an independent artist.
That record still stands today.
Meanwhile, Just The Empress has climbed to the platform’s current No. 2 position in active Scrybers, sitting behind only Ye.
Read that again.
Not No. 2 independent artist.
No. 2 active Scryber count on the platform.
Behind Ye.
That doesn’t mean an independent artist suddenly has Ye’s audience.
Obviously not.
It means Scrybe has created a metric where an independent artist’s ability to convert their own community into direct supporters can become meaningful without requiring superstar streaming numbers.
That’s a subtle distinction.
It may also be the entire point.
DMO Still Owns the Record
DMO’s place in Scrybe’s early history deserves its own distinction.
At his peak, the independent artist accumulated more Scrybers than any other independent creator has managed to date.
Others have climbed the current standings, but his all-time independent benchmark remains intact.
That gives Scrybe something young platforms desperately need:
An internal record worth chasing.
Streaming has spent years gamifying enormous numbers.
Scrybe is beginning with much smaller ones.
But imagine what happens if independent artists actually start caring about them.
Who reaches 50 Scrybers?
Who reaches 100?
Who gets to 500?
Who becomes the first independent artist to reach 1,000?
Those numbers may sound almost insignificant beside traditional streaming statistics.
Financially and relationally, however, they can represent something completely different.
Just The Empress Is Coming for It
Then there’s Just The Empress.
While DMO owns the independent record, Just The Empress enters today’s Version 3 launch holding the platform’s No. 2 position in active Scrybers.
Her climb illustrates exactly the behavior Scrybe wants to encourage.
Competition not simply for plays.
Competition for supporters.
There is something psychologically different about telling an artist another artist has more streams than them versus telling them another artist convinced more people to subscribe directly.
One measures consumption.
The other measures conversion.
And now that Version 3 is publicly available, Scrybe is effectively opening that competition to everyone.
Arizona Artists Helped Build It Before Today
Scrybe’s roots in Arizona also show throughout its early artist community.
Artists including Fe’La Iniko, Vavrix Owens and YungFace are among the creators who took the platform seriously before today’s Version 3 launch.
Fe’La has become known within Arizona’s independent scene for publicly challenging questionable business practices and advocating for artists to pay closer attention to the business behind their music.
Vavrix Owens has combined music with community activism and an emphasis on real-world relationships.
YungFace has been close enough to Scrybe’s development to be part of the community surrounding the company in Phoenix, including appearing courtside alongside Phyfier at a Phoenix Suns game.
Then there are creators such as TruckDC, who recently relocated to Los Angeles as he continues building his career, and DJ Iceman, representing the DJs and tastemakers who have always played an important role in how hip-hop moves.
They operate at different stages.
Different cities.
Different audience sizes.
That’s useful for Scrybe.
The company’s model isn’t supposed to work only after an artist becomes famous.
The real test is whether it works before they do.
The Founding Fifty
Scrybe has formally recognized 50 of its early serious adopters as the Founding Fifty.
That shouldn’t be confused with the first 50 artists to join Scrybe.
The platform already has thousands of artists in its ecosystem.
Instead, Scrybe describes the Founding Fifty as the first 50 creators who truly began treating the platform like something worth building around.
The group includes Ye, DMO, Just The Empress, Fe’La Iniko, Vavrix Owens, YungFace, TruckDC, DJ Iceman, Pyro Lucain, Angelica Ross, Apollo Breck, Royce Ripken and dozens of other artists, producers, DJs and podcasters.
For those artists, today’s launch creates an interesting distinction.
Everyone can join now.
But nobody can join the Founding Fifty.
That part of Scrybe’s history is already written.
Version 3 Adds Something Streaming Has Mostly Removed: Communication
The subscription model isn’t the only thing changing today.
Version 3 introduces Tips and Fanmail, pushing Scrybe further toward direct interaction between creators and listeners.
Fans can financially support creators beyond their subscriptions through Tips.
Fanmail allows them to communicate directly through the platform.
Again, neither concept is revolutionary by itself.
The combination is what matters to Scrybe.
Listen.
Subscribe.
Tip.
Communicate.
Return.
The platform wants those actions happening around the same creator relationship.
Instead of a fan becoming another statistic buried inside an analytics dashboard, Scrybe wants creators to recognize that somebody is on the other side of the screen.
The Hard Part Starts Today
Building an alternative streaming model is one thing.
Getting people to change their behavior is something else entirely.
Scrybe is entering a market dominated by some of the largest technology and entertainment companies in the world.
It doesn’t have their user bases.
It doesn’t have their resources.
It doesn’t have decades of consumer habit working in its favor.
And Scrybe doesn’t win simply because its argument sounds good.
Artists actually have to bring people.
Fans actually have to subscribe.
They have to tip.
They have to send Fanmail.
They have to return.
That’s the experiment beginning today.
Scrybe isn’t asking whether people will stream music.
We already know they will.
It’s asking whether artists can turn some of those listeners into something more valuable.
What If 1,000 Real Supporters Matter More Than 1 Million Passive Plays?
That may ultimately be the question Scrybe is putting in front of independent hip-hop.
Not whether streams matter.
They do.
Not whether playlists matter.
They do.
Not whether going viral can change a career.
Obviously it can.
But what happens afterward?
If an artist gets one million streams and almost nobody remembers their name, what was actually built?
If another artist reaches only a fraction of that audience but convinces 1,000 people to consistently support them, buy tickets, purchase merchandise, share releases and subscribe directly, which artist has the stronger foundation?
There isn’t one universal answer.
But Scrybe thinks artists should at least be asking the question.
Version 3 is officially live today on iOS and Android.
Now the platform has to prove its philosophy can survive outside of testing.
Because Scrybe’s bet isn’t really that streams are going away.
It’s that artists eventually remember what was behind them the entire time.
People.
