[Syonyk]

Wasn't there some recent article about how Bandcamp got acquired by a competitor and is more or less being left to rot on the vine?

I agree, the FLAC downloads are a major perk of it, and I'll happily buy music there. But I wouldn't trust it to be around long term at this point. It's too consumer-friendly to exist long term in this modern world we live in. :(

[Semaphor]

Bandcamp doesn't need to change, it can just keep going. That's what I meant with "neither sale", because there were also some (if fewer) doomsayers for the epic sale.

It got sold. Nothing changed. And again, you own the music, if it stops existing that sucks, but only for the future, everything you bought, you still have.

And fwiw, I don't think anything for Bandcamp will change.

[pavel_lishin]

> And again, you own the music, if it stops existing that sucks, but only for the future, everything you bought, you still have.

Only if you downloaded the mp3s/flacs, and also backed them up.

[Semaphor]

Do people use BC in other ways? I mean, I guess technically, you could just keep streaming, but do people do that? I’d assume anyone using bandcamp cares about having the music actually available.

[pavel_lishin]

I think some people assume that it'll always be there to re-download. I certainly download things immediately, and stick it somewhere where it'll be backed up nightly.

[xerox13ster]

Bought by EPIC, conducted layoffs to crush unionization attempts.

[vanchor3]

Bought by Epic Games then Epic sold to Songtradr, which is when the layoffs happened.

[JohnFen]

In the long term, everything is temporary. Enjoy the good stuff now while it's here!

[Syonyk]

In the long term, yes.

In the human lifespan terms, our digital stuff is a lot more stupidly temporary than it has any good reason to be, and physical media (especially in the realm of music) has rather outlasted it.

Records (vinyl) from 60 years ago still play perfectly fine with a cleaning, and CDs are holding up quite well too in general. Because my ability to play a record from the 1960s or 1970s is not dependent on the company that created it still being around, and being willing to license it to the company that delivers it for me to play it, at favorable contract terms, etc, etc, etc.

[JohnFen]

All true -- which is what makes Bandcamp such a treasure. Download the flac and you have it forever (or a reasonable approximation of that).

[rakoo]

That's the thing: everything is temporary, but who gets to decide how temporary it is ? If it's you, fine; if it's not you for totally avoidable reasons, that's a problem.

[solarkraft]

Nothing, neither for good nor for bad, has noticeably changed about Bandcamp in the 5+ years I've been using it. I'd call that "leaving it to rot" - but hey, at least it hasn't gotten any worse. If the new owners keep the course, it'll be okay.