While making press rounds in advance of an expected IPO, OpenAI’s Sam Altman says the first one-employee $1 billion company is inevitable. That hype isn’t merely self-interested, but meant to push the idea that use of any AI product can make users who have an enterprising spirit into the new rich.
I recently logged into LinkedIn, which in 2026 is a source for AI speculation from wannabee industry leaders. Healthcare executives trumpet AI as amazing for patient outcomes while healthcare practitioners decry AI as a further insult to a large population of patients who feel that executives don’t care if they live or die. Tech executives gush that AI’s the best thing since dopamine, while almost every software engineer is appalled by its advances.
When I saw a posting by a LinkedIn user about Bandcamp, the online platform for musicians, I was curious. He’s against a policy Bandcamp recently rolled out which bans AI-generated music on its platform. This policy suggests that even the suspicion of AI-generated production in submitted music would violate this policy. He felt this was overreach, a misguided attempt to censor people who want to use AI tools to be more productive.
Many in the comments section accused him of not knowing what Bandcamp was. The implication was he wasn’t a musician, a tuneless one-man business who became aware there are AI tools that can pop out a tune on his behalf. I marinated on the question of “What is productivity in music?” but this was less important than “What is on the path of making music?”
I met Splice Today co-editor Nicky Otis Smith over a decade ago at the now-defunct DIY venue Hexagon. The purpose of the organization was to encourage local artists to present their works to the public. I estimate that a few hundred bands and artists came through that space in about three years. While the memory of the art has faded, the socializing that occurred has had more staying power. There’s joy in meeting people, the likely neurodivergent who obsess over the same four chords on a cheap guitar or who’ve decided that minimalist painting is their life’s calling.
In this space strangers decided they should be friends even for one night. Plans to collaborate on projects were forged. Neither were financially lucrative proposals but human connection doesn’t have to be about the bottom line. People were often surprised that we had a real PA or that shows ran on time and with access to a clean bathroom. Maintaining the space multiple nights a week was a task but in retrospect it never felt like work, even when the space barely broke even.
My initiation into music, as both a novice musician and a DIY space operator, was outside the norm. I’ve told the above story about the days of the Hexagon to anyone who’s been curious about why I got into music. Some have looked at me as if I was talking about ancient aliens. Others have thanked me for letting a friend’s band they knew years ago play at the space.
As for the question of making music faster and more profitably, I didn’t care back about that then, and I care less now. I saw a few artists vie for that badge of honor, the Pitchfork Media record review. But indie recognition was unsustainable 15 years ago, even in the digital gray area before streaming services devalued the deliverable previously called a song.
I applaud Bandcamp for drawing a boundary, even if unenforceable, on what’s acceptable to their audience, largely bedroom producers whose friends often don’t know about the platform. I rest easy knowing that inevitably the business will one day fold and it’s the musicians who’ll continue onwards, trading stories in a coffee shop about middlemen who would’ve been better off learning to play an instrument and start a band.