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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

#381

Post by rorykoehler »

imhelpingu wrote: post #316
JohnnyConatus wrote: post #156

ITT no one admitting that the problem with the recorded music industry is now the fans who expect bits that make sound to be free while other bits are paid. Spotify, Pandora, and Soundcloud fixed just about everything that people said was wrong with the industry from the consumer point of view. And don't give me that line about the labels screwing artists because thanks to fans who won't even pay for a premium subscr…

It's not the artists who are struggling, it's the platform. By your logic, I'm oppressing Youtube creators because I didn't buy Youtube Red. In terms of artists posting on Soundcloud, the fact that there's any demand for Soundcloud at all pretty much torpedoes this entire worldview you're espousing. It is extremely common for artists to simply give away mixtapes on Soundcloud. When/if Soundcloud is gone, those same a…

I take it you've never had to buy pro-audio equipment?

Re: SoundCloud cuts jobs, closes SF and London offices

#382

Post by ioddly »

hasbroslasher wrote: post #249
coldtea wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insignificant in the grand scheme of things. The music industry is a shade of what it once was, and both CDBaby and Bandcamp are tiny slithers off of that.

Bandcamp is fine, but it's not on the level that Soundcloud was for browsing music (or for hosting your own). It's still really limited on the social side - the only way you get "likes" is when people download your stuff, the discovery tools are limited to "what's popular in this tag today" and random curated content. There's no "feed" like Soundcloud had. Also, possibly the most irritating part of the site is that f…

Bandcamp is where most of the bands I care about seem to release their music.

But, like you said, most of my discovery occurs on YouTube and a small forum thread.

Re: SoundCloud cuts jobs, closes SF and London offices

#383

Post by lawrenceyan »

TillE wrote: post #172
mbesto wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Youtube make any real money I hope you mean specifically on music, because that comment is laughable. > Recommendation algorithms are the least of Soundcloud's worries as the platform just doesn't have any real business plan and just can't play the "growth game" anymore. This 1000%

YouTube has considerable revenue, but as far as I can tell they're still unprofitable.

YouTube as of present day is profitable. To me, and I'm sure Google thinks the same too, the data they've amassed and are exponentially amassing far outweigh in value any notion of profits. This is about playing the long game, not focusing on quarterly earnings.

Re: SoundCloud cuts jobs, closes SF and London offices

#384

Post by bm1362 »

dustinmoris wrote: post #22

They also laid off the entire New York team and at least some individuals in Berlin: https://twitter.com/pje_txt/status/882977097232338947 https://twitter.com/katalunia_/status/882992899893460993 > Well, SoundCloud just laid off all of its New York engineering > Literally the entire payments and subscriptions team, ads-eng, monetization engineering, everybody > Not really clear to me how the execs think this company…

I just quit the payments team with Pje a month ago and I can say no one saw this coming. The entire payments and subscriptions infrastructure is now unmanned. Pje was a veteran but most of the team was The silver lining here is that recruiters are in a blood frenzy; I've had ~30 messages come in today.

Re: SoundCloud cuts jobs, closes SF and London offices

#385

Post by [deleted] »

dustinmoris wrote: post #22

They also laid off the entire New York team and at least some individuals in Berlin: https://twitter.com/pje_txt/status/882977097232338947 https://twitter.com/katalunia_/status/882992899893460993 > Well, SoundCloud just laid off all of its New York engineering > Literally the entire payments and subscriptions team, ads-eng, monetization engineering, everybody > Not really clear to me how the execs think this company…

[deleted]

Re: SoundCloud cuts jobs, closes SF and London offices

#386

Post by kasey_junk »

kazinator wrote: post #346
kasey_junk wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't seem like a controversial position for those of us who enjoy music to wish there were some professionals making it. If we are going to have professionals they must make money some how & the current status quo requires them to be constantly touring. Talk to them and this is taking its toll both in longevity & album quality. I listen to albums a lot more than live concerts so I find this concerning.

> I listen to albums a lot more than live concerts so I find this concerning. Or .. disconcerting ?

How dare you.

Re: SoundCloud cuts jobs, closes SF and London offices

#387

Post by bm1362 »

phreeza wrote: 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 heard it was disabled during/before an all hands this morning.

Re: SoundCloud cuts jobs, closes SF and London offices

#388

Post by bm1362 »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #23
tyingq wrote: post #6

Other sources say total employees are 420, so it's roughly a 40% cut. Ouch.

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.

AMA I've worked at SC and AWS (another service that gets criticized for its warts) so I'll help you understand.

Re: SoundCloud cuts jobs, closes SF and London offices

#389

Post by grumblestumble »

Interesting stuff out of this thread.. I really love Soundcloud, especially for discovery, but I guess I'm an absolute edge case. I primarily listen to electronic DJ sets (RA, Dekmantel, etc) and the community track ID comments on these are great for discovering new music. I rarely even look at the feed.

Re: SoundCloud cuts jobs, closes SF and London offices

#390

Post by pje »

skylark wrote: post #50

This is a perfect example of how strong software engineering from competitors can result in you getting completely left in the dust. YouTube and Spotify have great algorithms for suggesting new songs - I feel like when my current song is done, I have a really high chance of hearing another song that I've never heard, but will enjoy. This is not the case on SoundCloud, where I'm almost always jolted back to reality wh…

this is really the dumbest possible take on the whole situation.
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