Back when Bandcamp was sold to Epic Games, folks were skeptical of its future. A year later, Epic sold them off to Songtradr and laid off a sizable chunk of staff. Skepticism was at an all time high. Since that time, Bandcamp hasn't changed much. The site continues to function as it always has - they still do Bandcamp Friday, they publish Bandcamp Daily regularly and seem to simply be keeping things stable. On the one hand, this is good news for folks concerned that Songtradr was going to upend the service into music licensing opportunities but, on the other hand, they continue to lack any sort of notable innovations. The site feels a bit stagnant quite frankly.

All that preamble is to set the scene for a number of alternatives that sprouted up over the last few years to provide something different from Bandcamp. Last night, Ampwall went live. The new platform has been in beta for some time, working out kinks and polishing their tech. I signed up right away and started uploading. I'll share a handful of my first impressions below but the TLDR is: I like what they're doing and am excited to continue building out my presence there!

• The Mission is Critical - to really understand what Ampwall is doing, you must read their Mission statement. It's lengthy but it's the guiding principle of the whole site. They are determined not to be driven by the pitfalls of other major tech companies, namely the "grow-at-all-costs" mentality. I applaud the manifesto and highly appreciate the openness that the founders are musicians that understand the hardship of finding a community online.
• The Pricing Model Is Different - this will be the biggest hill for them to climb. Bandcamp is their closest competitor and it is free to start using (tho they definitely have a paid plan as well). AmpWall is asking for a $10 per year fee to add up to 5 hours of music. This is a much lower fee than Bandcamp but is required up front to get started. I don't think pitching in $10 (or more) per year to a platform that is actively working to support artists is a tough call but I can certainly see how artists will be hesitant to dive in without a free tier.
• No Label Pages... yet - the platform doesn't offer much for labels yet. As such, my label profile is a little lacking. BUT I'm happy there are future features they can easily build that will improve things. Not a complaint, just an observation.
• Artist Profiles Need Tightening - this is an aesthetic complaint. A subjective opinion. I hesitate to even cite it because of that subjectivity but I'm not loving the artist profiles or album pages. They feel unbalanced and lacking focus. The content within them is fantastic (headers, profile images, logos, et al) but I have hard time mentally parsing through them.
• Uploading was Easy - no link for this but the process of getting hours and hours of music uploaded was not laborious in the slightest. They really have done a great job on the backend of holding your hand and explaining each field to make sure you know how the content is going to be used.

That's it for my first impressions. I'm excited to add all new releases and possibly do a full backfill on the entire yk Records catalog. Mostly I am just excited by a platform that is openly talking about adding features and listening to the community using it. I have a deep love for Bandcamp but can't deny that they don't seem the least bit communicative outwardly. Ampwall is taking a different tact and I'm here for it!

Go sign up! Fan accounts are free. Artist accounts are cheap.