The best thing I read this week: The fate of Bandcamp

The best thing I read this week was an article titled "Is Bandcamp as We Know It Over?" by Phillip Sherburne from Pitchfork.

This article outlines a worrying event to the independent music industry; the sale of music streaming and purchasing site Bandcamp by SongTradr. Shortly after the acquisition, SongTradr laid off half of Bandcamps staff, including eviscerating its customer support staff and editorial staff.

Even the name SongTradr just sounds like the type of company that would engage in "enshittification," the name given to the phenomena of a company becoming a far inferior user experience due to a companies efforts to make their service more profitable or attractive to potential buyers.

Though the core functioning of Bandcamp has not yet changed, the layoffs and vague statements by SongTradr do not bode well.

Currently Bandcamp is a crucial aspect of the independent music economy, giving many artists the support, attention, and financing not afforded to them by streaming titans such as Spotify. It's shuttering would be catastrophic to independent musicians everywhere, who will have no currently viable alternative to turn to.

The article does a good job at pointing out the specific effects Bandcamps enshittification or closing would have on these types of struggling artists, and outlining the world where streaming becomes increasingly monopolized.

Thankfully the article does offer actual concrete advice for independent musicians reading the piece, such as downloading a Chrome extension to automatically save all your Bandcamp songs in the event of a sudden shut down.

It also draws parallels to other independent music sites which have been enshittified, such as Discogs, which has been pumping up user fees in an effort to show buyers the increased revenue.

I have seen many musicians bemoaning the demise or Bandcamp and how it will negatively affect their lives and the culture of the industry. This is exactly why it's important for journalists to shine a light on companies doing this type of thing. People deserve to know when thousands of little-man users are being screwed over for the profits of a handful of executives.