First off, awesome sentiments and kudos to the site/community for getting behind this post.

I have been a devoted fan since the mid-90's and truly believe the band has the best intentions of engaging and delighting it's audience.

As someone who researches web analytics, creates content, and implements marketing strategies for a living I feel like I have a different perspective on the debate over the value and effectiveness of LivePhish. What is happening with the fan base now is a crying help for change. Phish, as a company, is alienating it's audience by allowing corporate marketing to run their business.

Obviously, Capshaw and MusicToday is a business decision by the band to alleviate the pressures of managing the corporate side of things. In order to do everything they would want to do as a band, from a marketing and content delivery standpoint, would require them to employ a ton of people. They are at a place where they shouldn't have to give a damn about this, and in all fairness they have worked way too hard to be in on every detail of how their business is being run. And we should support that idea. They should be allowed to concentrate fully on the music and have a group of people they trust delivering their digital content and running their business.

It's not 1994, running a company has changed dramatically over the past 20 years. That being said, I feel like a boutique marketing firm would be a better fit for Phish. The cash they lose on MusicToday would be better spent on a group of people who know their audience. MusicToday probably claims to know their audience, but that "knowledge" comes from corporate marketing folks who view fans as dollars and cents. Their main concern is getting LivePhish users to fit into their business plan, not wow them with the experience of being a part of the music. MusicToday might work for Dave Matthews or Tim McGraw fans (other MusicToday clients), but we Phish fans understand the uniqueness of our relationship with the band and are confused and upset at how that relationship is being tossed aside for the bottom line.

Last night, at best, there were between 5K-10K users watching the stream on YouTube. LivePhish customers who paid for this are a part of this number. Let's assume, and I'm being super generous, that 7,500 of these people were people who paid and ended up on YouTube as a solution to their undelivered LivePhish paid stream. At $30 a pop that's $225,000 in revenue. MusicToday slobbers at this number. They want this for every live show, and I'm sure the band would be stoked to make that much for a special event too. They deserve compensation for including the Couch folks. The problem is that the method in which Phish's content is being delivered is not effective- or what the fan base would expect from their favorite band.

Mike loves Couch Tour and posts Instagram photos regularly joyfully poking fun at it, so it's apparent that they know how we are engaging with them and like the fact that people are following along. Why would they take away the ability for fans to listen to the latest show for free and in essence kill an obviously popular method to participate in Couch Tour. And during a tour where a majority of east coast are counting on a stream? With social channels like Mixlr, UStream, and Livestream, fans are following along to free audio (sometimes video) streams every night of tour. The demand is for a free stream not a paid one if you look at the numbers beyond LivePhish. The devotion of the fan base would pay a nominal fee if the pricing was scaled in a way they found appropriate. I've watched video streams on UStream with upwards of 4,000 people before, chatting and watching for free. This displays that there is an audience for this service, it's just not being marketed correctly.

Who will facilitate fixing the disconnect between the fans and Phish's marketing decisions? Would you pay $5 per show for an audio or video stream? Would you pay $0.99 to listen after the fact as the old LivePhish app allowed fans to do for free previously? Hopefully this is what MusicToday product marketing folks are asking. As a Phish fan I want to pay them to listen along, just not the way MusicToday expects me to. Ultimately, some change needs to happen for Phish's audience to engage with their content in a way that gives the band some kind of revenue and entice fans into spending. All it takes is one person to broadcast their LivePhish video stream on UStream to allow thousands of fans to watch or listen along for free and, to me, that doesn't seem fair to JEMP or what their business model should be.

Last night when I heard Is This What You Wanted I thought, yes a free stream is almost what I wanted. That may not have been the context that the band envisioned with that song but it's definitely how I interpreted it.

Thinking back to refreshing Andy Gadiel's page back in the 90's I'm reminded of a time when just knowing what they were playing was a joy. We need to get back to that feeling all dollars and cents aside. Some kind of action is required and I hope our voices, questions, and demands are being heard.