Subvert is a music sharing service that I joined as an early alpha tester a few weeks ago, but it finally went live and now I’m using those links to buy my new song instead of Bandcamp.

What even is Subvert?

Subvert is a bit like old school music stores, similar to the way iTunes started out. It lets you discover new artists and pay money to own their songs. Similar to Bandcamp, but with a few key differences that I think are pretty important – especially on the 2026-era internet.

Subvert isn’t owned by a bunch of millionaires and billionaires. It’s operated as a co-op, meaning the people on the platform also own the platform. Each of those members can vote on upcoming company decisions and earns back a portion of the profits. So that’s cool!

Probably the most important part is this – you’re actually buying the music, not just renting access to it. You pay for it, you download it, you own it. That’s it! What a concept!

Also, Bandcamp fired half of their staff right as the sale by Epic Games to Songtradr was happening. This doesn’t affect any of their users directly, but it reeks of disdain for their employees and dodgy moral choices. And despite them banning AI generated music (which is a good thing), I’m not sure what that says about them.

What happens next?

To be honest, not much will change for either me or you. Because I haven’t uploaded much to Bandcamp, I don’t have a lot to transfer across. People who have been building a catalogue over there will have a lot more work to do if they want to switch. Maybe I’ll keep Bandcamp just for voice acting reels or silly stuff, I don’t know.

But going forward, all of my new music will be up to buy on Subvert before it hits the streaming services. It’d be great if you came along with me!