CLUSTER
Music communities aren’t what they used to be: being a user of a music platform in 2025
by Pierluigi Fantozzi
Cluster explores the new senses that cluster around musical currents of the past and present, their aesthetics and practices. Like the dissonant chord from which it takes its name, Cluster will highlight contrasts and chords in the relationship between sound and the communities built around it.
Remember when you could send messages on Spotify? No one does, right?
After all, that feature was discontinued back in 2017—a lifetime ago, especially considering we’ve since lived through the watershed of the pandemic.
Introduced in 2012, the chat function was initially met with curiosity by Spotify users, but was soon abandoned. So, just a few years later, Spotify made the “difficult decision” to remove it. How “difficult” that decision really was for the Swedish giant’s board of directors—or whether it was simply a phrase pulled from a cold PR template—is anyone’s guess. One thing’s for sure: some users weren’t happy, and it marked the final blow to the already fragile sense of community on the platform.
Community: a word frequently used in internet lingo, referring to a group of people brought together by a shared interest and engaging in dialogue through the web. Although the word is still around, it feels outdated to those who remember the crucial role forums once played—before the rise of social networks. In forums, users could converse more naturally: threads and comments followed a simple chronological order. With social media, however, that chronological principle has been replaced by the more complex and algorithm-driven criterion of “relevance,” which is really just a fancy way of saying: “we’ll show you what matters.”
So, on Instagram or Facebook, the top comments are often those that spark the most outrage, the most affection, or are just perfectly controversial. Keeping track of the chronological flow of a conversation has become nearly impossible—so much so that one might ask: is what happens in a comment section even a conversation? Naturally, the very concept of community is profoundly changed: the infrastructure that supports it is no longer the same.
Music platforms have absorbed this logic too, transforming the way users interact with music—and with one another. Today, music is discovered and consumed almost exclusively on platforms that have nothing to do with forums and only a vague connection to social media. Still, that doesn’t mean communities have ceased to exist.
The SoundCloud community, for instance, is alive and well. Founded in 2007, the platform is one of the most widely used by independent artists and labels. Though it’s made some unpopular choices in recent years—like introducing an upload limit in 2019 for users without a PRO subscription—it remains the service with the most active community. Each artist can maintain a personalized profile with visible contact info. Most importantly, there’s a chat feature and a comment section untouched by algorithms: every comment is anchored to a specific timestamp in the track, allowing for spontaneous and direct interaction.
Bandcamp, for its part, has a loyal following. While users can’t message each other or discuss the tracks they listen to, many features of the platform foster a sense of being part of something larger. Chief among them, buying a track or an album means directly supporting the artist. Equally significant was the introduction of “Bandcamp Fridays”: an initiative launched in 2020, during the pandemic, where the platform waives its commission fees, letting artists keep 100% of the revenue. Also appreciated is the editorial section, rich in in-depth musical content.
Bandcamp has cultivated an almost untouchable aura, seemingly unshaken by its recent acquisition by tech giant Epic Games (Fortnite, Unreal Engine…) or by its swift resale to Songtradr.
Spotify, on the other hand, is the most popular of all, but it is effectively a platform without community: it doesn’t encourage interaction among users and doesn’t allow them to post anything (except under podcasts). We’re light-years away from forums: Spotify is a product of the second phase of the web, dominated by algorithms, where chronological order takes a back seat to whatever the platform deems most suitable for each user. It works brilliantly—perhaps too brilliantly—and its monopoly seems unchallenged, despite the controversies surrounding Daniel Ek, the company’s CEO and founder, linked to his political ties with Donald Trump and his recent investments in the arms industry.
In a digital landscape dominated by efficiency and algorithmic personalization, music communities survive in increasingly narrow corners—but the desire for genuine exchange and active participation in the musical conversation still exists. Yet as long as music discovery is delegated to an intelligence that optimizes consumption rather than fostering dialogue, we’re left wondering if something essential has been lost along the way. Maybe it’s just nostalgia for the old forums—or maybe it’s the still-relevant need to feel part of a shared story—not just spectators, but participants.
Pierluigi Fantozzi
Pierluigi Fantozzi, 1995, is a musician. He graduated from the National Academy of Jazz in Siena and obtained his master’s degree at the Conservatory of Bologna. A clarinet player, he has played in jazz ensembles, but has cultivated an interest in electronic music, also collaborating with Tempo Reale. Since 2023, he has been part of the Controradio team, for which he has conducted interviews with important figures on the international music scene. As a radio speaker, he leads his own programme ‘Passabanda’.
