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Subvert – Collectively owned music marketplace

(subvert.fm)
226 points cloudfudge | 3 comments | 18 Oct 24 16:17 UTC | HN request time: 0.784s | source
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mmooss ◴[18 Oct 24 17:57 UTC] No.41881857[source]▶
It's a great start. Co-ops and non-profits can also be subverted and taken over. I hope you look ahead and plan very carefully.

For example, according to an (unverified) story someone told me, a vendor to US east coast food cooperatives now controls many of them; they get their person in, pass bylaws empowering them and disempowering the board (the board usually lacking sophistication), and have deeper pockets for any legal struggle than any co-op member does.

Also, I remember in the news that a non-profit or limited-profit company in the IT industry, founded for the public good, is going to be turned into a for-profit. The board actually fired the person behind this plan, but that person came back and fired the board members.

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1. cloudfudge ◴[18 Oct 24 20:29 UTC] No.41883179[source]▶
For the record, I'm not affiliated with Subvert and in reading the docs I find their arguments about the "problem" with Bandcamp extremely weak/hypothetical and stated over and over again without any evidence. I am skeptical that they understand the economics of running a music retail site and think they might find that the cut Bandcamp takes is actually pretty fair for the value bands get. And I also don't really get how they plan to make this "collective ownership" actually work for real, but I also got really exhausted reading the doc and gave up, so maybe it's buried in there. The real reason I posted it here was hoping the HN hive mind would dissect and critique the actual plan for me. :)
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2. geraldmcboing ◴[18 Oct 24 23:27 UTC] No.41884394[source]▶
The problem with Bandcamp is neither hypothetical or weak. The problem is that its been sold twice, and is now owned by a company who attempted to fire anyone who tried to unionise, which is a red flag. Will bandcamp be sold again? Yes, very very likely. So that is exactly the problem.
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3. cloudfudge ◴[19 Oct 24 02:35 UTC] No.41885218[source]▶
First of all, "attempted to fire anyone who tried to unionise" is entirely made up. They laid off fully half the company; it wasn't targeted at all. Second, the "very likely" part about it being sold is hypothetical, and the follow-on effect of that being bad for artists is doubly hypothetical. As of right now, the service is exactly as it was back when it was "the anti-spotify" that everyone was in love with. It was owned by someone trying to make money before and it's owned by someone trying to make money now. If this is the dread enshittification, please enshittify all over me. Or admit that this isn't enshittification, it's just a fear of what might happen.