Subvert.fm – a new Bandcamp?

A self managed outlet for the independents

Subvert.fm launched to the public in May 2026 as a new online music cooperative. Using the new platform artists can publish digital music content for download. Owned by the artists, labels and supporters it presents itself as a democratic (“market socialist”) alternative to Bandcamp.

For those who don’t know, bandcamp.com, founded in 2008, is an online store for digital music downloads. Artists and labels can run their own stores and offer both digital downloads and physical music as well as merch. It has become a huge success as it puts self-publishing artists and small and medium sized independent labels in the centre, let’s them create their own stores and manage their own distribution. The interface is somewhat limited, but very functional and easy to use both from the publisher and the customer side.

Besides the individual stores, Bandcamp offers a newsletter function where artist and labels can publish news and updates to their followers. It also offers editorial content (“Bandcamp Daily”) allowing browsing and discovery. Another avenue for discovery are the public collections of fans as well as a live update of what downloads or records are being sold at any given moment.

Bandcamp takes a 15% cut on digital and 10% on physical sales. On top of that, payment services take their cut, so typically an EP priced at €3.00 costs the customer this amount plus VAT or GST or other applicable sales taxes. Then revenue share – Bandcamp’s 15% – and payment processor fees (e.g. PayPal fees) are deducted. Bandcamp finally typically transfers the amount of +- €2.30 to the artist or label.

It’s easy to see how Bandcamp became a successful business – so successful that the founders sold it to Epic Games in 2022. Epic Games sold it to Songtradr the next year. Many people lost their jobs and questions arose regarding the credibility of the platform.

Post-Bandcamp?

These events undoubtedly spurred on the idea of creating a similar platform that should be owned by the people who are engaged with the music: the artists, the labels, the fans.

Subvert is in the process of realising just that. However they also promise to forego revenue shares and instead intend to give buyers the option of “tipping” the platform. Considering that hosting and delivering digital content incurs substantial costs, this doesn’t look like a good prospect. Everything will be fine until the initial funding of $700’000 runs out. Hopefully they will find a sustainable influx of cash by then.

If not, there is a danger that Subvert might follow in the footsteps of the likes of ithinkmusic.com and resonate.is, both great ideas that ultimately failed.

Right now, Subvert is still very much “under construction”. While it is possible to sign up as a label, it’s not possible to create label pages yet. Instead labels can create pages for their artists, with the plan to be able to combine them to a label page in the future. Many other features, including selling physical releases and merch are in the pipeline.

What is functional so far are artist pages and release pages. A lot more will follow according to the published road map. A lot more information can be accessed here.

Praxis on Subvert

A collectively owned platform sounds great to us, so we have set up the following artists with a total of 10 releases by 5 artists so far (click on the artist names to go to their subvert.fm profiles):

• – Amboss: Basic Training (praxis_01001, 2024)
• – Amboss: Kompressorwahn/Avenida Paulista (Sub/Version 014, 2009)
• – Base Force One: Dynamite & Fire (Praxis 39, 2005/2024)
• – Base Force One: The Point of No Return Remix by Nihil Fist (PraxisX4, 2023)
• – Base Force One: Welcome to Violence Remix by Alex Buess (PraxisX5, 2024)
• – Noface: Hallucinate Remix by Base Force One (PraxisX3, 2022)
• – Nomex: Trocante Gramofony E.P. (Praxis 33, 1999)
• – The Wirebug: Factory Food (Praxis 57, 2019)
• – The Wirebug: Factory Food Remixed (Praxis 57X, 2024)
• – The Wirebug: Busted Gush Remix by Alex Buess (PraxisX6, 2025)

What’ next?

After uploading the ten releases over the last few days, we’ll slow down a bit and see what happens. I’m curious about new features being rolled out and hopeful that the coop structure will eventually produce a strong base for independent artists and labels to operate from.

I do think that will mean something that is more than just a replacement for a platform that, with all its flaws, works fairly well for artists, especially compared to the commercial streaming platforms that do not have the best for artists in mind, even less – or should we say much less – than Bandcamp.

With this in mind I’m looking forward to see what the community thinks and if and how it can collectively steer the coop in an exciting direction for the future. There is what looks like a good start here and you should check it out.

• Read the subvert statement “A Collectively Owned Bandcamp Successor”
• Our linktree for more activities