At the moment, I’m heartbroken because of this. I’ve been using Bandcamp for a very long time now and it has been the single best thing to happen to independent music and musicians in the modern age. For me, one of its best features was the fact that it barely changed in all that time. It seemingly never chased the metrics that drive similar platforms to reinvent themselves constantly, so it’s always been a reliable, predictable partner. It’s the only product like it that I can think of where I can say that I truly believe that our interests are (were) aligned.

Now? It seems like a matter of time until their flashy front-end revamp, their new profit share agreement, a DRM option, a proprietary music player to compete with Spotify. I’m going to hope that their commitment to not changing dramatically holds true, but almost every acquisition starts with an email like this, so I’m not holding my breath.

And one of the worst parts, Bandcamp’s dominance is so thorough and its users so loyal that I’m unaware of a true competitor in their space. I’m not sure what I’d do if they did get progressively crappier.