This is a badly written article. Impossible to tell if the headline is accurate or if the writer made an alarmist guess.
When the first sentence has "but the its" in it, I gave up on even trying to read the article.
SoundCloud could be forced to close after $44m losses
71–80 of 348 posts
Re: SoundCloud could be forced to close after $44m losses
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I've been a daily soundcloud user for almost 6 years. At some point they gave up on trying to change or improve the user experience. Yeah, probably at the point when they started hemorrhaging money. Why do people expect a company that is dying to focus on UI improvements? Like any other business in the world, their focus is on staying alive.
How do developers focus on "staying alive" if not by making the product better (or leaving)? I'd expect that the architecture issues of growing larger have mostly been solved by now.
They probably work on things that help bring in more paying customers. UI tweaks isn't among those things. I'm betting they have a whole analytics team, for example.
Re: SoundCloud could be forced to close after $44m losses
#73I hope this is just an alarmist headline. SoundCloud is pretty essential in its space, it's one of the few services that lets you natively get audio on to Twitter, the main place musicians share snapshots of their work and remixes, and a key part of numerous podcasts and ways to embed easily shared audio on the Web. This is one startup I absolutely don't want to see go down the pan.
have you ever paid a cent to soundcloud?
As a heavy user (but not uploader) I remain almost entirely unmonetised (for better and for worse). I'm fed almost no ads either on the web or app, and there is no premium plan for listening.
Re: SoundCloud could be forced to close after $44m losses
#74The report makes it clear that while the company had “adequate resources to continue in operational existence for the forseeable future,” SoundCloud was heavily reliant on “further capital investment” to continue operating in 2015.
What's the difference between "operational existence" and "continue operating" here?
Re: SoundCloud could be forced to close after $44m losses
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
The auditor has clearly stated that it has doubts about the company as a 'going concern'. This is a technical term in auditing that implies the auditor has doubts that the company will survive (i.e, will have to liquidate) another twelve months. It's not a willy nilly "growing company is losing money" type statement, it means there is a fundamental problem in how the company is financed and operated. https://en.wikip…
I think you've misinterpreted this From your link: "This accounting principle assumes that, a company will continue to exist long enough to carry out its objectives and commitments and will not liquidate in the foreseeable future."
You've missed a negation.
Re: SoundCloud could be forced to close after $44m losses
#76I've been a daily soundcloud user for almost 6 years. At some point they gave up on trying to change or improve the user experience. Soundcloud has done nothing to facilitate the growth of users who focus on reposting/finding/sharing/curating content, vs. content creators who upload their own music. There is no way to gain a following or reputation as someone who reposts content on soundcloud -- and even if you have…
Every single time. Some company is having business troubles so let's gripe about their UI.
Re: SoundCloud could be forced to close after $44m losses
#77How many of these services will have to shut down before it's user's will start supporting them? Please give me the option of paying money, and making sure you will be in business for the next few years.
Re: SoundCloud could be forced to close after $44m losses
#78What do 200 people do in such a company? (serious question, I just wonder how the workforce is usually distributed for a single online product of that size)
The way a startup can become a bloated corporation-like structure here in Europe is a surprisingly fast process.
But that doesn't answer the question of what all these people do! I wouldn't have thought they'd be more than 20 people max. Surely they don't have many developers, or we wouldn't see all these remarks here about how they have not updated their site in years. So what's everyone in such a "bloated corporation-like structure" doing? Filling out TPS reports and sending them to each other to get stamped?
I've worked in a place that built and shipped 3 or 4 product lines: actual physical hardware with software, and did it with fewer than 50 people, most of them on the manufacturing line.
Re: SoundCloud could be forced to close after $44m losses
#79Article is bs. they lost 44m in _2014_. Raised 77m last year. They may need to raise more in 2016. Nothing else. No other facts. No info on their balance sheet, etc. Doesn't even know if they're growing, what their revenue or losses for 2015 were. And based on that, Fact thinks that's enough to say they "may be forced to close".
The auditor has clearly stated that it has doubts about the company as a 'going concern'. This is a technical term in auditing that implies the auditor has doubts that the company will survive (i.e, will have to liquidate) another twelve months. It's not a willy nilly "growing company is losing money" type statement, it means there is a fundamental problem in how the company is financed and operated. https://en.wikip…
Auditors are required to issue such statements when there is no line of sight to the company being solvent (and no one can guarantee that the company can close a financing round.) I'd venture a guess that almost every startup at a similar stage to SoundCloud would have the same issue if they are audited.
Re: SoundCloud could be forced to close after $44m losses
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
have you ever paid a cent to soundcloud?
As a music producer I pay 79 EUR / year since 2011 because I enjoy having a practically unlimited storage space for my own productions, may it be a complete song or stems (individual instruments) that I share with musicians I collaborate with. 80% of the tracks on my account are private. I mostly use Soundcloud as a musical post-it system so I can easily listen to my productions in different settings (car, friend's h…
Do you have backups of your tracks into case Soundcloud goes away?
EDIT: Its on my to do list to write a pipeline for Soundcloud for Archive Team this weekend. Just in case. That doesn't pickup private tracks though. Backup your stuff!!