[geraldmcboing]

The problem with Bandcamp is neither hypothetical or weak. The problem is that its been sold twice, and is now owned by a company who attempted to fire anyone who tried to unionise, which is a red flag. Will bandcamp be sold again? Yes, very very likely. So that is exactly the problem.

[cloudfudge]

First of all, "attempted to fire anyone who tried to unionise" is entirely made up. They laid off fully half the company; it wasn't targeted at all. Second, the "very likely" part about it being sold is hypothetical, and the follow-on effect of that being bad for artists is doubly hypothetical. As of right now, the service is exactly as it was back when it was "the anti-spotify" that everyone was in love with. It was owned by someone trying to make money before and it's owned by someone trying to make money now. If this is the dread enshittification, please enshittify all over me. Or admit that this isn't enshittification, it's just a fear of what might happen.

[cloudfudge]

To add to this: one of the basic arguments about enshittification is that it happens as a result of services starting out by operating at a loss, which leads them to eventually need to shift the value proposition towards actually making the platform sustainable. Bandcamp built their service sustainably, achieving profitability back in 2012, so there is a lot less incentive to enshittify, which is borne out by the fact that the overall value prop hasn't changed in all that time.