The band has been silent on the matter, which is an extremely strong indicator that they got a boatload of cash in the deal.

Everyone is reaching for pitchforks but all signs point to the band getting a huge payday.

Funnily enough that is against the Instagram ToS (https://help.instagram.com/termsofuse):

> 4.2 How You Can't Use Instagram. [...]

> You can’t sell, license, or purchase any account or data obtained from us or our Service, regardless of whether such data was obtained while logged-in to an Instagram account.

> This includes attempts to buy, sell, or transfer any aspect of your account (including your username); solicit, collect, or use login credentials or badges of other users; or request or collect Instagram usernames, passwords, or misappropriate access tokens.

This, especially given the same switch happened with twitter handles as well.

I'd love to get paid a ton of money to leave their social shitwork for good. Do they have mastodon or bluesky?

Don't be so generous in your assumptions. Meta simply stole the username because they could, and gave the old owner nothing in return. Or if they were lucky, maybe the band got a few Meta branded t-shirts, as was the case for one of the other victims from the article.

Seriously, look at that list of all the times Meta stole people's handles. Why would this time be any different?

You base this off what? We really live in a post truth society where innocent asks for evidence supporting a claim are discouraged.

I am not saying it stolen, merely asking if there is any proof it was bought. And no, “oCcAms rAZOr” is not evidence.