Subvert

But Bandcamp isn’t the answer. Moving all music from Spotify to Bandcamp is no more of a solution than moving all of TikTok’s content from ByteDance’s data centers to Oracle’s cloud. The Bandcamp model might offer artists a greater degree of control and revenue share, but Vine has shown that there’s too much to be lost by investing so much in a sin... See more

In the early days of social media, companies made blogging technologies with the promise that writers would be able to communicate directly with their readers. This pattern played out in industry after industry. But these changes left creators at the mercy of companies far more powerful, far more ruthless, and far less accountable than the record l... See more

Today almost all creative work is digitized and essentially rented — lowering payouts, devaluing work, and redirecting the lion’s share of rewards to the platforms hosting the work rather than the creators themselves.

Behind these conversations is a fundamental change of the digital age that applies to essentially every creative field: in the past, consumers bought and collected physical editions of creative work, creating a direct value exchange between fans, artists, and producers. Today almost all creative work is digitized and essentially rented — lowering

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The fact that entirely new global networks and economies were spawned by fair agreements between musicians, designers, and organisers. The individual is truly more independent under an interdependent regime, with a network of people who have their back, or an audience of people who cover their expenses.

As large platforms get richer off their users’ personal data and time, people are trying to regain control. We spent the last fifteen years working for gig money, likes, retweets, or follows. The platforms gave us reputation or cash, but no ownership, upside, or voice in its evolution.