I just joined Subvert — and to mark it, I’ve released a brand-new 5-song EP there, available as a full EP or as five standalone tracks, however you like to listen. This isn’t me leaving anywhere; think of it as a side door. But I wanted to explain what Subvert actually is and why I think it’s worth having music on it alongside everything else.

What is Subvert?

Subvert is a music marketplace owned by the people who use it. Not a venture fund, not a private equity shop, not a game publisher — the artists, labels, and supporters who sign up as members. It launched as a direct answer to what happened to Bandcamp: first acquired by Epic Games in 2022, then sold again to Songtradr in 2023, a deal that came with layoffs and the dissolution of Bandcamp’s union. Watching a platform built on “artist-friendly” values get flipped twice in two years was a wake-up call for a lot of musicians, myself included.

Subvert’s answer is structural, not just a marketing promise: it’s a cooperative. Members vote on how the platform runs, and there’s no outside buyer who can quietly change the rules or sell the whole thing out from under the community. It launched with tens of thousands of artists, labels, and supporters already signed on from more than 120 countries, and the co-op has voted for 0% platform fees on sales, with buyers able to chip in extra at checkout to help fund operations instead.

Why it’s a big deal for independent artists

For those of us releasing music without a label machine behind us, the math matters. Keeping 100% of what a fan pays for your music, instead of losing a cut to a platform, is not a small thing when you’re funding your own recording, mixing, and artwork. Beyond the money, there’s the governance piece: decisions about fees, features, and policy get made by a vote of the membership, not by a board answering to shareholders. That means the platform can’t quietly pivot toward ads, algorithmic feeds, or extraction the moment growth slows down, because the people it would extract from are the ones who own it.

It’s also just a healthier bet long-term. A co-op can’t be acquired the way a startup can. If you’re building a catalog and a fanbase over years, that stability is worth something.

Why it’s worth a look if you just love music

Even if you never plan to release anything yourself, Subvert is worth poking around. It’s built for actually buying music — downloading it, owning it, not renting access to it through a subscription that could raise prices or vanish tomorrow. Every purchase goes straight to the artist and the co-op that supports them, not to a platform trying to squeeze margin out of both sides. And because it’s still early, browsing feels a bit like digging through record store bins before an algorithm decided what everyone should hear — a real chance to find something new before it’s trending.

If that sounds interesting, you can check out my page and grab the new EP (or just the songs you like) at subvert.fm/julience. Nothing else changes — you can still find me in the usual places too. And if you’re an artist curious about giving Subvert a try yourself, happy to talk about it — just reach out.