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SoundCloud could be forced to close after $44m losses

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Re: SoundCloud could be forced to close after $44m losses

#141

Post by jonknee »

aback wrote: post #110
cmyr wrote: post #103

Soundcloud is absolutely ubiquitous in the electronic music community. I was talking about this with a friend recently who is a programmer and a (relatively) well known composer, and she made the point that soundcloud actually represents a very important cultural document; there is tons of music that has been created in the past 5+ years that exists exclusively there, and it would be a tremendous cultural loss if it…

when people argue that "digital distribution is essentially free," then ask why Soundcloud is losing money, since distributing music is literally their only real cost of doing business. we will continue to endure substantial cultural losses for so long as people continue to believe that content can & should be distributed and consumed for free. ultimately some sort of micropayments + blockchain-like-cloudserving migh…

> since distributing music is literally their only real cost of doing business.

From the article it sounds like their main cost is paying a ton of people a lot of money.

Re: SoundCloud could be forced to close after $44m losses

#142

Post by roel_v »

_ak wrote: post #37

> While SoundCloud brought in €17.35m ($15.37m) in 2014, it lost a total of €39.14m ($44.19m). Employee wages during that period also increased 42.5% to €17.9m, meaning that the average wage per employee for that year totalled €79,980. Wow, that is ridiculously high, especially so for Berlin.

How is that 'ridiculously high'? That's say e4000/month after taxes (if total tax pressure is 40%). These costs also include e.g. the director's salaries, which I presume are more than 80k/year for a 10 year old company with 200 employees.

Re: SoundCloud could be forced to close after $44m losses

#143

Post by stuart78 »

tudorizer wrote: post #104
cmyr wrote: post #103

Soundcloud is absolutely ubiquitous in the electronic music community. I was talking about this with a friend recently who is a programmer and a (relatively) well known composer, and she made the point that soundcloud actually represents a very important cultural document; there is tons of music that has been created in the past 5+ years that exists exclusively there, and it would be a tremendous cultural loss if it…

Are any of your friends paying for SoundCloud?

Their business model seems backwards. There are a lot more of us consumers than producers, so why not offer packages to us? That model does turn SC into a more traditional service, but because it has a more unique collection than the alternatives, it seems to have distinct value.

Re: SoundCloud could be forced to close after $44m losses

#144

Post by jlarocco »

aback wrote: post #110
cmyr wrote: post #103

Soundcloud is absolutely ubiquitous in the electronic music community. I was talking about this with a friend recently who is a programmer and a (relatively) well known composer, and she made the point that soundcloud actually represents a very important cultural document; there is tons of music that has been created in the past 5+ years that exists exclusively there, and it would be a tremendous cultural loss if it…

when people argue that "digital distribution is essentially free," then ask why Soundcloud is losing money, since distributing music is literally their only real cost of doing business. we will continue to endure substantial cultural losses for so long as people continue to believe that content can & should be distributed and consumed for free. ultimately some sort of micropayments + blockchain-like-cloudserving migh…

Honestly, I don't think the solution even requires that much creativity or innovation.

Just in the past 3 or 4 months I've found half a dozen or more artists on Soundcloud, then headed over to Bandcamp or Amazon to buy and download their music. It would be awesome if I could buy it right there on Soundcloud. Every song could have a "Buy MP3" and "Buy Album" button right there by the Like, Share and other buttons.

Maybe it wouldn't solve all of their problems, but it's better than what they have now.

Re: SoundCloud could be forced to close after $44m losses

#145

Post by spenczar5 »

6stringmerc wrote: post #124
cmyr wrote: post #103

Soundcloud is absolutely ubiquitous in the electronic music community. I was talking about this with a friend recently who is a programmer and a (relatively) well known composer, and she made the point that soundcloud actually represents a very important cultural document; there is tons of music that has been created in the past 5+ years that exists exclusively there, and it would be a tremendous cultural loss if it…

As a counter-point though, the role of SoundCloud in a diversified music commerce portfolio is not ideal as a catch-all archive. A professional elsewhere mentioned it is a useful tool for sharing and A/B/C listening tests with tracks set to private, but that's not the end use-case scenario. In principle, SoundCloud should not be the sole - or even main - distribution channel for a music act. To put it another way, So…

I think both these points agree: SoundCloud is the one place where you can find lots of music, especially electronica. Also, that's not a very healthy thing if you're interested in preserving history.

Re: SoundCloud could be forced to close after $44m losses

#146

Post by taylorwc »

TheLogothete wrote: post #106
taylorwc wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Soundcloud is almost 10 years old. At what point a company stops being a startup? At what point it stops being feasible for a company to operate at a loss?

Are these meant to be rhetorical? You decide when you're going to stop calling it a startup. They are venture-backed and founded within the past decade. I'm going to call them a startup.

As for question number two, I'll let you count how many publicly-traded companies aren't profitable that have been around for decades.

I didn't register an opinion on whether SoundCloud should or shouldn't be profitable, I merely said what GAAS[0] requires an auditor to do.

[0] http://pcaobus.org/Standards/Auditing/Pages/AU341.aspx

Re: SoundCloud could be forced to close after $44m losses

#147

Post by bonniemuffin »

tudorizer wrote: post #104
cmyr wrote: post #103

Soundcloud is absolutely ubiquitous in the electronic music community. I was talking about this with a friend recently who is a programmer and a (relatively) well known composer, and she made the point that soundcloud actually represents a very important cultural document; there is tons of music that has been created in the past 5+ years that exists exclusively there, and it would be a tremendous cultural loss if it…

Are any of your friends paying for SoundCloud?

I want to pay them, but they didn't seem to have a music-listener-focused subscription level last time I looked. All of their paid features were designed for music producers, not listeners.

Re: SoundCloud could be forced to close after $44m losses

#149

Post by vertex-four »

6stringmerc wrote: post #124
cmyr wrote: post #103

Soundcloud is absolutely ubiquitous in the electronic music community. I was talking about this with a friend recently who is a programmer and a (relatively) well known composer, and she made the point that soundcloud actually represents a very important cultural document; there is tons of music that has been created in the past 5+ years that exists exclusively there, and it would be a tremendous cultural loss if it…

As a counter-point though, the role of SoundCloud in a diversified music commerce portfolio is not ideal as a catch-all archive. A professional elsewhere mentioned it is a useful tool for sharing and A/B/C listening tests with tracks set to private, but that's not the end use-case scenario. In principle, SoundCloud should not be the sole - or even main - distribution channel for a music act. To put it another way, So…

A lot of queer music, IME, is primarily distributed through Soundcloud - and more generally, there's a lot of people making music for reasons other than making money off it. Obviously, it's a poor business choice to keep a service running primarily for these people, but it's certainly a cultural centre for certain types of music none-the-less. I'll be sad to see it go.

Re: SoundCloud could be forced to close after $44m losses

#150

Post by 6stringmerc »

scheda wrote: post #102
strgrd wrote: post #14

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. 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…

Disclaimer: I know these guys through TechStars. I see a lot of complaints about stagnation on SoundCloud, and while I'm not a user, I completely understand the frustration that brings. There's a new kid on the block with these kind of services, clyp.it. I liken them to imgur for audio, focusing around music for the most part. They've got strong ties to the community and even have some big names using their tool like…

Thanks for the heads-up about the site - honestly I've found a lot of good, new, or developing channels through this site and comments like yours. I've taken a look and joined up, and will be definitely interested to play around with it! This fits perfectly in the discussion in my opinion. Looking forward to exploring more.
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