RIP Bandcamp

[chk071]

Last thing I heard was that Epic is in the red by hundreds of millions of dollars each year. They're trying hard to stoke up their games store by paying publishers quite a lot of money to offer their games for free. Pretty insane business tactics.

That said, I don't know whether it is good for Bandcamp that Epic took over or not. Time will tell.

[Frantz]

Beats me.

The article backs up what you are saying but it feels like there was more going on than what these articles state. Perhaps Epic made the Bandcamp CEO an offer he couldn't refuse? Perhaps he expected Bandcamp to be gutted but if he had has mansion and yacht, he didn't care?

[farlukar]

Bandcamp Just Trying To ‘Keep The Lights On’ Following Epic Sale, Layoffs

Download everything FLAC you ever bought from Bandcamp, right now .

[VOODOO U]

BC owners -the original ones- made too much money and the internet mafia kicked them out of the block to take over.
BC will remain and if it doesn't, something similar will take it's place. The artists, as usual, will serve as the maggot infested dirt that feeds the flytrap seeds.

[thecontrolcentre]

Download everything FLAC you ever bought from Bandcamp, right now .

Already done that. I download FLACs every time I buy something ...

[SHall1000]

Buy CDs!

[D.H. Miltz]

Bandcamp Just Trying To ‘Keep The Lights On’ Following Epic Sale, Layoffs

Download everything FLAC you ever bought from Bandcamp, right now .

Thanks. And goddamnit.

[farlukar]

bah

my 13 years at bandcamp are coming to an end - i’ve been laid off along with most of the remaining engineers. best job i’ve ever had, working with the best people you could ever work with. unceremonious end to quite a ride.

[dayjob]

bah

my 13 years at bandcamp are coming to an end - i’ve been laid off along with most of the remaining engineers. best job i’ve ever had, working with the best people you could ever work with. unceremonious end to quite a ride.

yeah.. just saw this today on social media. such a drag. feels bad. a lot of artists and labels have built strong followings on the platform and been successful w/releases. it’s convenient. not perfect but has worked well for a lot of people.. fans included.

https://www.subvert.fm/

seems to be growing as an alternative if bandcamp does indeed die a final death… we’ll see.. i guess there will be lot’s of people looking around for somewhere to land.

as someone who has purchased a lot of music on bandcamp i’m annoyed and will have to make sure my back ups are up to date.

[farlukar]

If I had to guess, Songtradr management thinks they can vibecode a platform with hundreds of millions of users.
Hopefully they will hire the engineers back when the stochastic parrot turns out to be not so reliable, and/or the tokens cost more than then devs.

[foosnark]

I'm surprised not to have seen anything about this anywhere else yet. Not that I don't believe it, but... it seems like important news.

[TechHaus]

Dang I was just warming up my account for a summer release. Need a new plan.

[dayjob]

Dang I was just warming up my account for a summer release. Need a new plan.

probably ok to go ahead w/the release on bandcamp while you’re looking around for something else.

i’ve not read any other news about bandcamp except for that one social media post. peter kirn did share it on mastodon so perhaps some article is in the works w/more details.

this place also gets some love from people but i’ve not looked at it to hard:

https://mirlo.space/

[farlukar]

welp

I have a friend who is set to be laid off from there. Can’t discuss anything specifically identifiable but:

Long term employees who were let go were the ones who held the line against AI Sloppification of the service. They are gonna have one engineer, a tiny fraud team, and a marketing team left over iirc.
If they do replace the people who were laid off, they are gonna outsource all of it because everyone laid off was either American or Canadian.

In the end, this is going to have very negative impacts on Bandcamp as a service with serious ramifications to artists that use it as part of their income.

The engineers are being quiet at the moment because the final layoffs are at the end of the month, they were given notice just this week.

Nobody has taken to the press just yet because of ramifications on how that may impact severance and such.

I suspect we will hear more in the coming weeks as the line draws nearer for being officially out of work.

[Ciderwell]

I never used Bandcamp but I do feel for you - this is huge!
I wept buckets when FM Future Music magazine went out of print a year or two ago. No more articles on gear, musician interviews, and the monthly fix of free samples...