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-- Soundcloud announces Soundcloud Go

Soundcloud announces Soundcloud Go

https://blog.soundcloud.com/2016/03...-soundcloud-go/

The shit news in once semi-sentence: Paid streaming or advertisements for all listeners.

I went on a rant because I had some time to spend. If you have too (hehe):
https://www.facebook.com/SoundCloud...153346944206059

I'll say one thing.

They have balls.


Arrogant fvcking assholes

Re: Soundcloud announces Soundcloud Go

quote:

Originally posted by Storyteller The shit news in once semi-sentence: Paid streaming or advertisements for all listeners.

I'm gonna find a list of all the sponsors, then embed their competitors' ads into all of my tracks.


Lucky for them, nobody listens to me anyway.

This is pretty much what I expected, tbh.

How did they make money before? Pro subscriptions I guess. The no ads business model just doesn't work. Other services went the ad route, youtube, pandora. Also, copyright claims were dogging SC, so they had no choice but to go the youtube way. I dunno why people think everything should be free, someone has to pay for it. People need to stop freaking out, it was either this or no SC at all. If you don't like it, cancel your account. It's pretty much the same SC, just with ads.

I say all that, but how does mixcloud make money? And how do they deal with the copyright issue? I've never encountered an ad on mixcloud. They must make enough from Pro subscriptions. How long long will it be till they introduce ads.

A transcribed excerpt from my soundcloud rant on FB.

quote:

With love for the concept of Soundcloud I waived a significant part of my rights as an artist, just for the sake of being part of the experience, with you Soundcloud, without you having to pay me for use of my intellectual property. I did not mind giving up on owed royalties as I felt like we were in this together, even though I was always fully aware this is your project, not mine. I was always under the impression I was paying to provide access to all my music simple and hassle-free to anyone out there. I only have a handful of followers but even even for those select few it was worth paying for a subscription. With the introduction of advertisements and subscriptions to obtain that same hassle-free experience I fear that the core value I appreciated so much will soon be completely gone. Also, it is kind of awkward for you to start monetizing my music directly while expecting me to make a monthly payment as additional income. I know you're trying to cover costs here but on a moral compass it feels unjust. You can't have it both ways.

They went from community to "bend over, bitch" in a day.

They just abandoned the incredibly successful niche that they created for themselves. I guess we just need someone else to step up and fill that void while Soundcloud runs off and tries to be the next Pandora.

hearthis.at is attempting to do it, but they don't seem to be very good at getting the word out. There are other more established sites, like ReverbNation, SoundClick, etc., that have gotten pretty stale and are really lacking in the simplicity/networking department that made SC so successful. You'd think one of them would take the chance to overhaul their outdated paradigm and establish themselves as the next SC.

At $9.99 per month I have serious doubts people will be willing to hand over their money. Try combining that with other ongoing subscriptions such as Spotify, Pandora, Youtube Red, Netflix, Hulu, etc and things can get real expensive for users real quick. It's unreasonable to expect users to subscibe to service after service. Inevitably some services will fail due to lack of sales, and I suspect Soundcloud's weak market share will result in them being among the first.

Monetisation is also a big issue for the content creators. Soundcloud only allow "Premier Partners" to earn revenue and have admitted they have a significant backlog of independent artists waiting to become partners and have said that you now have to be invited to receive monetisation. They're trying to ream $120 annually from users yet only a small percentage of artists and labels are currently able to benefit from this income. Everyone else who chooses to post their music on Soundcloud Go will receive no remuneration whatsoever. How the fuck is that fair?

Well put. Fully agree.

quote:

Originally posted by cryophonik They just abandoned the incredibly successful niche that they created for themselves.

It's not sucessful if you can't monitize it.

Soundcloud has been bleeding money for years and the existing premium model just wasn't working. Not that the new one will either.

quote:

Originally posted by Woony It's not sucessful if you can't monitize it. Soundcloud has been bleeding money for years and the existing premium model just wasn't working. Not that the new one will either.

It was monetised by user/uploader paid subscriptions.

Where they went wrong (and this has been reported on) is running the business as some kind of frat boy money machine. The AVERAGE salary at Soundcloud is $80k.

Well, changing that would probably only decrease loss instead of turning it into a viable business

quote:

Originally posted by tehlord It was monetised by user/uploader paid subscriptions. Where they went wrong (and this has been reported on) is running the business as some kind of frat boy money machine. The AVERAGE salary at Soundcloud is $80k.

I find it amazing how internet companies still think whatever they do is an instant money making machine and piss it all away. The dotcom bubble burst over a decade ago, did these people learn nothing?

quote:

Originally posted by Woony It's not sucessful if you can't monitize it. Soundcloud has been bleeding money for years and the existing premium model just wasn't working. Not that the new one will either.

Yeah, I meant "successful" in terms of widespread use and name recognition. I certainly didn't mean the way it was financially mismanaged, as Geoff alluded to, and which has been pretty highly publicized.

Anyway, I think I agree with everybody else here that SC is pounding the nails in its own coffin with this move, but, I guess we'll see. As an independent artist who does very little to promote myself, what happens to SC doesn't mean to much to me one way or the other.

It's just crazy - the problem with tech companies is that they all have this "world domination" ego - they have to be the next multibillion dollar media conglomerate or it's bust.

That was the problem with SC - as with many of these businesses, they start out on day one with expenditures as if they've already got lucrative revenue streams, but don't, and then its all investment and market speculation to try to get them there.

Eventually the buck stops (literally) and it collapses to a shell of it's former self.

What the problem with running a small to medium company that serves a pretty big niche and makes $10-50m a year? But no, they have to go all the way.

Soundcloud should have kept it small, including their costs, and just sustained.

Like TA

quote:

Originally posted by DJ RANN Soundcloud should have kept it small, including their costs, and just sustained. Like TA

Swamper pays me $125K/year to hang out here, and gives me access to his private jet and vacation homes in Ibiza.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ RANN What the problem with running a small to medium company that serves a pretty big niche and makes $10-50m a year? But no, they have to go all the way. Soundcloud should have kept it small, including their costs, and just sustained. Like TA

How do you know if their previous business model was sustainable at it's core though? The old premium wasn't exactly a great revenue stream (targets very small % of users + increases server load) and I'm not sure if it was enough to finance the massive server costs.

I agree that the direction they've been taking is stupid though.

quote:

Originally posted by Woony How do you know if their previous business model was sustainable at it's core though? The old premium wasn't exactly a great revenue stream (targets very small % of users + increases server load) and I'm not sure if it was enough to finance the massive server costs. I agree that the direction they've been taking is stupid though.

It wasn't sustainable - it wasn't realistic from the outset because it was another one of these bubble/boom or bust models.

Their revenue in 2013 was over $11m (which really isn't bad for any relatively new company, but their expenditure was close to $45m.

That's bonkers. Server costs aren't so high, especially if you use amazon or google, that you can't make a profit.

now granted, 100m users at that point translating in to just $11m revenue is crap, but that's a lack of realizing potential capitalizing on your base. They could have done so many things from making top artists pay for extra features or promotion, having better functionality for those wishing to pay a little more. Instead, now they're going to charge for what was once free. Bye bye existing user base.

I never get why these companies think they need 300 people all paid $200,000+ to run an established platform. Heartthis.at is a guy in his bedroom who made a better platform that scoundcloud did and all he'd need to do is scale the server demand. That 11m a year is looking real good for him.

I see it time and time again and the fundamental problem is that they behave from the outset (and are staffed as such in fancy premium offices) as if they are a roaring success, and then comes the pressure to get ever more investment, and find a path to going public or be bought.

However, youtube, soundlcoud etc al, might all be over shortly anyway....(new thread about to be posted)

So if you have a Pro account, your free listeners still hear adds, and you get no royalty fees per listen. OK, that's lame. No one uses that model. I don't see how this will work, it's unfair.

So.... how many of you have actually signed up to Go?

Nope. I did notice they recently launched stations here in NL. It allows you to get a fees with similar music to listen to. Might be nice...

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