The concept of a demo

I have been thinking a lot lately about what this really means and how much it has changed since I first got into hardcore... in the late 80's. Demo tapes were pretty much the way of life for us back then and except for scanning maximum rock'n'roll for ads of bands we'd heard of and sending them $3 or $4 for a 7" (and waiting and hoping it showed up in the mail sometime that year). These demos were the most raw recordings imaginable, but I loved every one of them. There are demos of local (and Buffalo) bands I'm dying to get converted to mp3 so I can have them on my iPod. And that kind of brings me to my point right now.

In the modern world it's so easy for any kid with a computer to setup and record in their basement that mp3s on sites like Purevolume and Myspace have replaced demo tapes as the way to get yor music out there, and occasionally I'll see demo CDs out at shows. I think this is amazing, and I'm totally for embracing technology to grow and expand the scene.
My problem is with the commercialization and push for bands to explode onto the scene wth a slick product that's going to get them noticed and get them signed and millions. This means bands are spending hundreds and even thousands of dollars on recording a demo (EPK, Press Kit or whatever) that sounds better than every record I've ever put out in all my band incarnations!
I guess my real problem here is that my previous band straddled the line between hardcore and what is now mainstream pop music so I have seen both sides. I have and always will think of myself as a hardcore kid, and I will always have those ideals, but our scene has completely changed. There are still the diehard hardcore kids with some kind of DIY ethic, and that's really who I want to play for because that's where I feel at home, but regardless of what I want, the line between these scenes is really blurry and bands jump across all the time.

To me a demo is saying "here's some songs we wrote, we like them and we wanted to record them so we could listen to them, and share them with people we hope will also like them", NOT sending out a product that's going to launch my career of superstardom. I don't want to be a "rock god". I'm not ashamed to record something that's not perfect, or not finished or maybe we're not sure about. It's opening yourself up for criticism, and sometimes it hurts, but you are always going to get criticism no matter how slick or perfect you think that recording is. But if you're doing what you really love and you believe in it, you're going to find some percentage of people who have the same kind of passion as you and can see beyond a missed drum fill or something not being mechanically precise, to the heart of your music.
And what it comes down to is I'd rather share everything, flaws and all, than be scared about some kid on a message board who has no idea where I come from or what I'm all about. This isn't for him, it's for me and the people who really give a fuck.
I will continue to post songs, without regard for sound quality or artistic merit, just because that one comment that says "dude that new song is awesome" makes it all worthwhile.