The news cycle moves at an alarmingly fast rate these days – but try and cast your minds back to 2022. Multi-billionaire Elon Musk spent quite a lot of time flirting with the idea of buying Twitter, going off the idea of buying Twitter, being taken to court by Twitter because he changed his mind on buying Twitter, and then him agreeing at the eleventh hour to buy Twitter for $44billion.
Shortly after he took over, numerous changes happened. The most notable in those first months was the dismissal of huge chunks of the workforce – around 80% of the company’s employees either left or were made redundant in that period. The rest were told they had to work harder and much longer hours – or they too would face the axe.
Last week, Ears To The House reported on how Songtradr had acquired Bandcamp from Epic Games at an undisclosed price. We pondered exactly what would happen to the website going forward – and we now have a few answers to this question. And the first announcement? Half of Bandcamp’s employees have been given the sack by its new owner, led by no-nonsense Australian businessman Paul Wiltshire.
Quite how far down the Elon Musk book on acquisitions Wiltshire decides to follow remains to be seen. If he does, more substantial changes to Bandcamp’s interface and business could soon begin – certainly much more than occurred during the bizarrely relaxed Epic Games era in the company.
But one thing that looks set to continue for now, as previously reported by Ears To The House, is Bandcamp Friday. A statement issued by Bandcamp to a number of media outlets confirm the company says it’s “committed to keeping the existing Bandcamp services that fans and artists love, including its artist-first revenue share, Bandcamp Fridays and Bandcamp Daily.”.
A source within the company explained to us that “The consensus seems to be that right now, the money in fees lost from Bandcamp Friday is more than made up for elsewhere. Sales on the day, and the days around it, go up drastically. Songtradr would have to be mad to let it go anytime soon.”.
It currently seems to be the only thing not at imminent risk of being sacked by the new management…
