Subvert – Collectively owned music marketplace

How is Bandcamp doing nowadays? I know the backstory of it being bought by Epic, then Epic realizing they have no use for a music store and selling it off to Songtradr who immediately gutted it by firing half of the staff, but I don't use it enough to know if enshittification has set in yet.

This sounds like enshittification itself, in its own way. Rotating hands to the highest bidder.

I haven't notice any degradation so far. Recently they even announced a Bandcamp Friday - a day when a Bandcamp commission is 0 and all income from sales goes to the artists. Doesn't look like they try to squeeze as much profits as possible and slowly kill the platform in doing so.

I’ve got both artist and fan accounts. I’ve not noticed any significant change in service or tools in this whole period of change. The one thing that’s new is “listening parties”, but that seems fairly “on-beand” to me. BC was profitable for years prior to the first sale. Why mess with something that works?

I think that's been going on since early 2020. And yeah, I can't really tell a difference between Bandcamp before it was sold and today. It's a shame that they not only sold to Epic of all companies but then fired so many people.

How in the world is it enshittification if there's no noticeable change to users? Nothing got shittier, so doesn't that by definition mean it's not enshittification?

> fired so many people.

If there's no degradation, it should have been done long ago. Those salaries come out of musicians' pockets.

Maybe. It's really hard to say because you don't know what it took to build Bandcamp up to what it is today. We also don't know if things are falling apart or if the people still working there have twice their normal work.