Opening Up Subvert (An Update)

Subvert expands in Q1 2026

Over the past year, we've been building a collectively owned Bandcamp successor in public. We recently entered an alpha testing phase, and our members have stepped up - providing valuable feedback keeping the team busy with improvements. Last year, we reached the starting line. We organized 17,000 co-op members across 80 countries. This year, we begin.

Next for Subvert: expanding access to all Artist-Members.

As co-owners, we owe it to everyone to be as transparent as possible. In the past few months, our full time workers experienced personal emergencies that required a full stop in work. This has slowed our timeline, but we are back. We're grateful for your patience and support - and fully back on track with renewed clarity and focus. We know that everyone is ready to use the platform. We are excited about that too. We're close. 

TEST THE ALPHA PLATFORM HERE (log in, or sign up to gain access)

Subvert in 2026

Here are some themes guiding us for the next year. We'll be launching our full platform, deepening our democracy, and distributing agency and opportunity.

What does this next year look like for us?

• More members representing Subvert at events and with press
• Uplifting members and telling their stories through our social channels
• Creating more ways for members to shape our organization and its policies
• Greater emphasis on how we work, in addition to doing the work itself
• Embedding clarity and transparency in every step
• Hosting our first annual general meeting (and turning it into a party)
• Proving to the world and the music industry that we are serious

What's left before launching the platform?

The team is working on a few more things to get ready for thousands of artist pages to launch. We are stress testing our artist page creation flow, payouts setup, and release uploads. We're also making sure we have the proper customer support infrastructure set up, have our accounting practices dialed in, and some further legal review, and policy audits.

Some of this is not the most exciting work, but it's important for building something that earns and maintains trust. We're moving swiftly, but good things take time. And with the size of our community, the responsibility and stakes are higher.

Other Updates

Mondragon University Partnership

Later this month, we will be partnering with Mondragon Team Academy's undergraduate entrepreneurship students on a 48-hour challenge where students will help Subvert come up with solutions for a business challenge. More to come!

ESNS Recap

Last week we were at ESNS in Groningen, Netherlands - on two panels. "Rethinking Music Consumption" was a conversation with Liz Pelly, author of Mood Machine - and we also were on a panel considering what a fair music economy looks like "Beyond Streaming." It was great to have Subvert membership in attendance for these conversations.

Public Product Roadmap

We've taken a big step by creating a public product backlog, so now you can follow along with what we are building - in real time. Next: we'll be introducing a second roadmap for our co-op and governance backlog, tracking development of initiatives that are focused on the community and organization

New Blog

We just published a recap of the recent platform cooperativism conference in Istanbul. Read a recap of the event, and how the cooperative movement is thinking about AI here .

Label-member interviews

As we continue developing Label functionality on Subvert, we are inviting Label Members to participate in short interviews to help us learn what tools, workflows, and support systems you need most. Your insight will directly shape the label-facing infrastructure we introduce in upcoming releases.

If you would like to take part, simply reply to this email and we will coordinate a time.

Board AMAs on the Forum

Our elected Board representatives have now posted AMAs inside the forum, inviting all Members to get to know them, ask questions, and learn more about how the Board is continuing its work. We encourage you to check in, intro yourself, and share topics and decisions you care most about as a Member of the cooperative.

Staying connected

Please keep an eye out for regular updates, read latest reports, and join the forum conversations that are shaping Subvert's direction as we head further into 2026.