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SoundCloud cuts jobs, closes SF and London offices

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Re: SoundCloud cuts jobs, closes SF and London offices

#51
SoundCloud is my go-to for music while programming. I've spent countless hours curating my likes, playlists, follows, etc. I'd be quite upset if the service shuts down, 1) for the artists that have gained large followings through the service and 2) for all the personal time spent that will in the end mean nothing.

I think I'm reiterating what has been said before, but the reposting is horrendous. It's made the listening experience quite poor from just using the activity stream. I've also been really unimpressed with the lack of track uniqueness - if 2 artists repost the same song, it'll show up in my stream twice. Even more frustrating was the lack of uniqueness between tracks & playlists, where one could conceivably listen to the same song multiple times in a row because artists would post the track and then a single-track playlist with that track inside it.

The UI is also lacking for quickly adding to playlists, etc. The simplicity was a feature, not a bug, and the power of SoundCloud has been their artist community.

Re: SoundCloud cuts jobs, closes SF and London offices

#52
post #15

Their Github org seems to have gone from 45 to 37 members. Not sure what that means, do they only have 37 devs? https://github.com/orgs/soundcloud/people https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Lo9slf... edit: now it's at 35... ouch

I wonder why they decided to remove them from GitHub already [1] when they were given a 90 days notice [2].

[1] https://twitter.com/pje_txt/status/882983954059595776 [2] https://twitter.com/pje_txt/status/882981765064871937

Re: SoundCloud cuts jobs, closes SF and London offices

#53
post #31

SoundCloud is one of Berlin's prime examples when it comes to it's startup credentials, so them stumbling is really hard to see for someone working in the city.

Also signals the difficulty in building large companies in the European market. I've been to Berlin a handful of times, and even tried to raise money from Berlin investors... Needless to say it was a very frustrating process. They are very conservative and risk adverse. Additionally the bureaucracy and "red-tape" hampers business.

>Additionally the bureaucracy and "red-tape" hampers business.

Would love to hear details.

Re: SoundCloud cuts jobs, closes SF and London offices

#54
post #15

Their Github org seems to have gone from 45 to 37 members. Not sure what that means, do they only have 37 devs? https://github.com/orgs/soundcloud/people https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Lo9slf... edit: now it's at 35... ouch

The default settings for my org were private membership and I hadn't realized it until later on. There may be more developers who just are private

Re: SoundCloud cuts jobs, closes SF and London offices

#55

The wonder child of Berlin's startup scene is deceasing. Says a lot about the scene unfortunately.

Do elaborate, please - I have often considered moving but various things people have said keep putting me off, such as a mildly racist culture.

Re: SoundCloud cuts jobs, closes SF and London offices

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

420 still seems like a rather unreasonably large number (to me) for something that is basically a file hosting service with a couple barely maintained mobile apps and a web site. Quite a few artists I follow are on Soundcloud primarily for new material. I would happily pay for Soundcloud if they'd bother to update their app for Android Auto and Android TV.

What's up with reductionist posts like this every time a company announces layoffs? Scaling out a global business takes a lot more work than it does to run a no-SLA side project. And you hire people to build out businesses that don't yet exist. When you've overreached, or targets are consistently not being met, you re-org, or, if that isn't possible, you scale back.

> What's up with reductionist posts like this every time a company announces layoffs?

I hate people like this. "Oh I could build that in like a weekend with Go and React no need for 100s of devs..." Those statements only come from people who never built something even remotely in this size and have no idea how complex this stuff becomes when done proper.

Re: SoundCloud cuts jobs, closes SF and London offices

#57
post #39

I use SoundCloud daily for music I can't find anywhere else. I'm amazed they haven't tried harder to make people like me pay for the service. I would pay if I hit a paywall at some point of usage.

There are ads like every 3 songs on mobile. That would make someone like me either pay for their $4.99 service, (which I didn't even realize existed until recently because they only seem to advertise their $9.99 service) or use something else.

I don't think they have ads in all countries. I live in Norway and have not heard a single ad. When I was in the UK a couple of months ago, I received ads.

Re: SoundCloud cuts jobs, closes SF and London offices

#58

SoundCloud employee here. If you are hiring, please reach out to people from SoundCloud. The decisions of who to let go were not based on performance. A lot of amazing people, both attitude and technically.

Sorry for the bad news you received today.

If there's a internal documents with links getting passed around (there was a similar thing when Skype shut down their London office) please add our company to it as we're hiring https://thoughtmachine.workable.com/

Re: SoundCloud cuts jobs, closes SF and London offices

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

File hosting is just not a profitable enterprise. This pattern should be familiar by now: gain prominence by giving away tons of stuff to draw in users, and then clamp down when the bill comes due, resulting in a hard pivot that alienates the users. The truth is that users are not loyal. If you are offering something for free, they will be happy to take it, and they will have no qualms about moving on when you stop g…

Isn't facebook basically file hosting with a bunch of links?

Yes, though it's 1) the largest such service with 2) some very sticky features.

(Not that I use it.)

Realise that the flipside of such services is their real customers -- the adverts side. For online advertising, the two largest agencies claim over 60% of the market, and are named "Google" and "Facebook".

Everyone else is an also-ran. Which for any ads purchaser means "a lot more work for a lot less reach".

Re: SoundCloud cuts jobs, closes SF and London offices

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

420 still seems like a rather unreasonably large number (to me) for something that is basically a file hosting service with a couple barely maintained mobile apps and a web site. Quite a few artists I follow are on Soundcloud primarily for new material. I would happily pay for Soundcloud if they'd bother to update their app for Android Auto and Android TV.

What's up with reductionist posts like this every time a company announces layoffs? Scaling out a global business takes a lot more work than it does to run a no-SLA side project. And you hire people to build out businesses that don't yet exist. When you've overreached, or targets are consistently not being met, you re-org, or, if that isn't possible, you scale back.

Well it comes from having been part of companies that were going through this explosive growth phase, and seeing the corrosive effect it can have on productivity if not managed properly. I've seen formerly efficient and productive and happy teams get completely demoralized as truck loads of new people are added but nothing new gets done.

I'm not saying this is exactly what happened there, but as a user of their product I'm disappointed because I simply did not see a growth in features or improvement quality that I would associate with a company that was scaling out like it apparently was?

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