Just some interesting quotes from that interview. I wonder what their reaction would be if you played this back to them now:
"Our hearts were in the right place we just had no idea how to run a company"
"It got to the point where we didn't have the time or money to sustain the quality of the product"
"One of the things we wanted was for VMP to have a community and to feel like a community. That it wasn't just a record coming to you in a mailer. To feel like you were a member, a member of a real club."
"We dont want to do anything that would betray the members that we have had for a long time."
"We just talked to our customers a lot, and chatted to them to keep them in the loop. Communication is one of those things that help you when things hit the fan."
"A good way to communicate is just to not be a jackass to them"
"They want to beat the shit out of you for making something, like on reddit or something"
"I think the people who are successful long term are the people that get rid of their ego"
Its also saddening to hear how VMP used to be compared to what its become. I came in at the Demon Days time and even then it had some level of personalization and customer care which it just doesn't seem to have now. In this interview Tyler talks about how him and Matt would go out and buy rolls of textured paper, wrap up each record with twine, and hand write a note to customers. He also says they would ring each customer to ask what they had been listening to that month and create customer cards, which they would then use to make personalized playlists to send to them. Sounds like the really early days were super cool.
I listened to most of this interview and really just came away saddened. The company Tyler talks about is NOT the same company we're all talking about now.
I think that's really the most important thing people need to start understanding. The old VMP is dead and buried. It's so obvious in the way this company is being run and managed now VS the way Tyler's talking about the original VMP. I mean, VMP of 2017, we're not talking about the early-early days.
The VMP most of the people on this forum really loved is gone. That company doesn't exist anymore. The idea of a company that cares about its customers, which is something Tyler mentions a few times, is completely dead. He goes on and on about communication, but VMP's new communication strategy is to post randomly on Reddit and hope their main subscriber base doesn't notice or care.
I think there's a lot of anger at VMP on this forum. And I think a lot of that anger can be dissolved if we all just collectively accept that VMP is a fundamentally different company being run by fundamentally different people with very different ideas about what VMP should be. It's not a community or a club. It's not even a company that values its vocal and die-hard customer base. It's a profit-centered entity.
They used to be about adding value to their customers. But now they're about extracting as much value from those same customers are humanly possible.
And that's fine. I'm okay with it. I wish VMP was that old company, but it isn't anymore. Listening to Tyler talk was seriously refreshing. That's the kind of person we want in control of a company like VMP. There was no bullshit faddish techie business jargon, just straight up ideas about how to run a company and how to provide value to customers. Basically, he cared, and he didn't sound like a douche. Compare that to how Cam sounded in his unboxings with Ghostly and it's no wonder the company is so fucked.
I really think that everyone should go listen to that Tyler interview. I mean seriously, listen to it, and think about the current state of VMP. It's an entirely different company
and it will never ever go back. They will do their best to extract value from us while providing the absolute bare minimum in return. The perks, the extra quality, it's all going to go away sooner or later. Now's the time to get as much from them as humanly possible while starting to remove all emotional attachments from the equation. They're just a store that'll fuck you out of money if you let them, just like any other store.
As for me, I'm in for Classics until it starts to suck. I still think the Classics track is a great deal. I might do some more anthologies, depending what they are, but I'm disillusioned there. I'm not buying any VMP exclusives unless it's some kind of amazing classic that I really want, but I'm going to google around to make sure it's actually exclusive to VMP, and if it's not, I'm buying it wherever it's cheapest. That's the bottom line. If I'm just a customer, they're just a store.
