May 1st is the traditional day of labor protest, and some countries still celebrate and honor what they call “International Worker’s Day.” It began in Chicago, incidentally, following nationwide strikes demanding an 8 hour work day, unrest that killed several protesters and then the Haymarket Affair in which a bomb killed 7 police and 4 civilians.
May 1st is also rent day for millions of Americans who have been thrown out of work by the coronavirus pandemic and economic lockdown that followed. On April 1st, more than 1/3rd of Americans skipped paying their monthly rent. Most of those people had a job for at least part of March, but probably none of them worked at all in April.
What do you think that number is going to be on May 1st? 50%? 75%?
Because May 1st is also a Friday, and the day that many people’s paychecks would be direct deposited in their accounts – paychecks that they no longer get.
So I’m reading everybody copy/pasting this Bandcamp press release, using remarkably similar language whether they’re writing in English or French. The news is that Bandcamp is holding another “fee holiday” on May 1st, foregoing their usual percentage and handing over those proceeds of each sale to labels or artists, like they did a month ago.
That’s a really good thing. Not the copy/pasting – that’s a bad thing and one of the reasons nobody cares what the media says anymore.
The sale is a good thing. I hope a lot of people buy and I hope a lot of people in the industry make a lot of money. I’ll probably pick up a few things too, though I’m sort of worried that news of this 10 days out means everyone is going to sit on their hands until then.
I just think the second Bandcamp fee holiday is going to be the last thing people remember about May 1 2020.
