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SoundCloud's Collapse

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Re: SoundCloud's Collapse

#221

Post by drizzzler »

cupcakestand wrote: post #195
skewart wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not so sure that's true. Their key problem is that they didn't understand how much value there is in up-and-coming, amateur, and underground music. The record labels only have power when it comes to their catalogue. SoundCloud could have truly disrupted the labels by providing an alternative way to promote, monetize, and discover music. But they somehow got off that track.

How should this work? Once somebody is trending on such platforms, labels will come, give them tons of money, a contract and take over. And take them away from these platforms as well.

yes.

Re: SoundCloud's Collapse

#222

Post by pessimizer »

dboreham wrote: post #217
wolco wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that is the big loss. Having a place where one could discover new music has so much value over being served the same songs by the same few artists

If that were true then MP3.com would have been a stunning success 18 years ago.

Wasn't it? It was taken down by a lawsuit over my.mp3.com.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UMG_Recordings,_Inc._v._MP3.co....

Re: SoundCloud's Collapse

#223

Post by peterlk »

bogomipz wrote: post #155

>"In November 2014, SoundCloud closed a deal with Warner Music Group, giving the label an undisclosed cut of revenue from ads, a 3%–5% stake in the company and protection against past copyright infringement from the label." This sounds like terms dictated by the Mob. It's quite telling that the deal also conferred ownership on a content holder in order to be able to license and pay handsomely for their content. This…

Yep, I remember this. I used to use SoundCloud for everything. I built a following, a reputation, and then SoundCloud tried to commit suicide. They signed this stupid deal, they removed groups, and they tried to shove Soundcloud Go down everyone's throats. I think all 3 oysf those things are related, despite PR claiming (vaguely) otherwise.

I've been paying SoundCloud for years. They had a business model. I use(d) SoundCloud because everything on SoundCloud sounded different than everywhere else.

There is so much content on SoundCloud, and they've been doing their best to bury it under tracks that I can find on Spotify. Back in the good old days, when SoundCloud was small enough to have advanced search (because they were still using postgres on the back end), I remember searching for Balkan Swing Electro, and there was a ton of it. There is no way for me to discover new things like that any more because groups are gone, search sucks, tags aren't freeform, and SoundCloud wants to be Spotify. SoundCloud owned the long tail of music, you could find everything that didn't sound like Justin Bieber making a remix with Diplo and Wiz Khalifa, and very little that did. I'm eagerly awaiting the next company that wants to own the long tail of music.

My money is on Clyp right now.

Re: SoundCloud's Collapse

#224

Post by pessimizer »

jameskegel wrote: post #172
k-mcgrady wrote: post #17

SoundCloud could have been a nice business if they hadn't got greedy. From the beginning (or close to it) there have been various paid accounts for artists which a lot of people used. SoundCloud was the best place to discover new music from unsigned artists. There were unsigned artists with tracks on it that blew up and eventually got picked up by major labels. But: - SoundCloud neglected the platform. - Then they di…

It is funny you mention Bandcamp as your flagship example considering how much 1993 duct tape is holding it together. You cannot compare the UI and tech of the two; Bandcamp has neglected the same Courier New interface since they were a startup. SoundCloud engineering is worlds ahead. They were one of the biggest proponents and pioneers of containerized microservice architecture. They took a lot of beatings so that w…

The age and the architecture of their backend have absolutely nothing to do with Soundclouds usability, which got worse and worse after every iteration, following the typical pattern.

Re: SoundCloud's Collapse

#225

Post by drizzzler »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #206
cupcakestand wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How should this work? Once somebody is trending on such platforms, labels will come, give them tons of money, a contract and take over. And take them away from these platforms as well.

They'll give them an advance as bait for an exploitative and crappy contract which may well be run in a dishonest way. Given that most sales are downloads or streams now, the only thing big labels can bring to the table is a nuclear level of publicity. And by definition, that's going to be reserved for a tiny handful of multimillion-selling household names. Today's smaller bands and artists - which will be the majori…

Yes. Someone please build this. Message me if you need a designer.

Re: SoundCloud's Collapse

#226

Post by snowman311 »

erikb wrote: post #12

If anybody else is also put off by the writing style: There is some actual content there. One just needs to get through the first third which basically just repeats the headline. TL;DR (without my opinion added): Top Management started too late to think about making actual money. They also hired an asshole for their US offices. When they got an opportunity to be bought by Twitter they asked for way too much money. An…

I agree. I think SoundCloud's troubles came primarily from poor management. Throughout the monetization process, top management seemed to be hoping that the "business guys" would figure it out while they stayed in their comfort zones.

Re: SoundCloud's Collapse

#228

Post by arihant »

I think the reason is that music subscription services took off in last 2-3 years massively, and globally. Apple Music expanded to a good number of nations, so did Spotify and others. And so it has also become very easy for creators to put their music on those services. There are SaaS apps that put unlimited music on all platforms for artists for as little as $20 a year.

You don't need to partner with record label any more to be on iTunes, Apple Music, Pandora, Google Play, Spotify, etc. You need $20 a year. The goliath that SoundCloud was fighting killed itself.

As a creator, I know there are 10x more people listening on Apple and Spotify. There is simply very less reason to upload on SoundCloud except for community. And it is the community that they managed to piss off by partnering with the labels.

Re: SoundCloud's Collapse

#229

Post by jdavis703 »

jopie wrote: post #48
iagooar wrote: post #14

This shows us, that company valuations are ridiculous and actually mean nothing. Is SoundCloud worth a billion dollars? Well, it might be on paper or in the imaginations of the founders, but what does it really mean? To me, it's worth nothing. The real problem is: these companies start to operate from the perspective of "having" those millions of dollars. This is why they hire too many people for too much money. They…

How does this compare to Spotify which has 3000+ employees, debt financing of over a billion dollars, and an insane valuation? What does the future hold for that company whether it IPOs or not?

There's a lot that goes on behind the scenes.

You need sales people to sell ads, designers to build out the creatives (assuming the company you sold ads for doesn't have media that fits with your platform). Then you need account executives to manage the account. Then you need a billing department that collects the money. Then you need engineering to build out your ad serving abilities.

For IT you have the core that builds what some here have called a "shitty" UI. Then you have people working on all kinds of invisible things like developer tools to support releases. People working on recommendation engines. People working on instrumenting data and metrics for business analysts.

Then you have people who hand-curate music for each of the markets and local tastes that Spotify operates in. Then you need people to manage these people... Etc.

Re: SoundCloud's Collapse

#230

Post by ec109685 »

bogomipz wrote: post #212
thinbeige wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great quote and I had to smirk when reading this. It happens all the time. I remember a time when hiring RoR guys. Even the codebase was already in RoR, every new RoR dev said 'OMG we have to rewrite the entire app, the codebase is a mess'.

Sorry, what is RoR?

Ruby On Rails.
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