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SoundCloud raises $75M from SiriusXM

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Re: SoundCloud raises $75M from SiriusXM

#31

Post by choward »

csunbird wrote: post #18
S_A_P wrote: post #6

I stopped liking soundcloud when I realized that 99.999999% of my followers are bots. I dont need a bunch of followers that mean nothing. I would rather have 0 than 100 fake followers. I also realized that at my production rate, its cheaper to just use Distrokid and throw things out on iTunes than to hope for discovery on soundcloud. Now I just use sound cloud to distribute examples of hardware mods or how a piece of…

I am interested in what are the benefits of following people, since (by your definition) bots are following random people, there must be an incentive for it.

I'm not sure how SoundCloud works but does following someone get you more of their data than you would get otherwise? If so, I would say the incentive is data collection.

Re: SoundCloud raises $75M from SiriusXM

#32

Post by RandomBacon »

owlninja wrote: post #29
RandomBacon wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's why I never even activated XM on my new car even though it came with a 1 year free trial. I have Pandora Plus $5/month.

Also owned by Sirius btw

I didn't know that. At least it's extremely easy to cancel my Pandora subscription and they don't hound you like XM does. XM sends me a letter a month even though I never signed up. I'm curious how long they'll keep it up.

Re: SoundCloud raises $75M from SiriusXM

#33

Post by m4rtink »

unixhero wrote: post #16
eric_cc wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SiriusXM has no competition in the satellite radio space as far as I know.

US and Canada only.. sigh

This might actually be the one case where this limitation is not entirely artificial. :-)

The SiriusXM sattelites are in an inclined eliptical orbit with the highes point being over the norther hemisphere. This is the so called Molniya orbit, named after the first Soviet sattelites using it:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molniya_orbit

(Soviet Union had a lot of territory in higher latitudes where geostationary sattelites do not work well & the Molniya orbit needs less energy to achieve.)

So in the SiriusXM case, the sattelite would be much too low to provide useful coverage when over the southern hemisphere. And even when. As for not covering EU/Asia - this could be due to either the highest point of the orbit being always over US (guessing there) or due to ground station coverage when the sattelite is not over US.

Re: SoundCloud raises $75M from SiriusXM

#35

Post by UI_at_80x24 »

When I was a truck driver, Satellite Radio was practically a necessity. Sure I loaded up my ipod with music, but the selection was too damn limited and I would tire of hearing the same songs over & over again.

The best case scenario for FM radio (when you would finally find something that you could tolerate) was 1 hour. 1 hour of variety to stave off bordem and try to save your sanity. The effective range of the FM signal bubble was around 75 miles/120km. If you were unlucky 'Seek/Scan' button would be broken on the radio. Most radios in company supplied trucks were very shitty.

MY favorite times would be at night and manually adjusting the AM reception and picking up stations from all over the world. Trying to discern their location based on the commercials.

Sat. radio offered me consistency. It was wholly replaced once I discovered that audiobooks could be downloaded (and not cumbersome audio-cassettes).

Then as the years passed the variety on the stations offered diminished to the point that it seemed like they were playing the same 5-6 over & over again.

Mergers happened. Personal audio players got better. I could download enough books to keep me entertained for a month AND have music playlists that saved my sanity.

So I cancelled.

I STILL miss 'Spa Radio' channel73(?) when I am driving in hectic or tense traffic. That always enhanced my calm.

Re: SoundCloud raises $75M from SiriusXM

#36

Post by Minor49er »

adamcccc wrote: post #19

Eh? The last I heard was the Soundcloud was going bust and letting all it's employees go? ...I'm so out of the loop

It's another modern tech company that hemorrhages money with no return. All they do is lose cash, but they're popular. Compare this to Bandcamp, which has a great UI, no bots, and generates revenue. Yet it's less popular by comparison.

Just take a look at this article from 3 years ago titled "SoundCloud is losing a lot of money — is an acquisition coming soon?": https://www.theverge.com/2017/1/8/14206830/soundcloud-possib...

Get big and cash out

Re: SoundCloud raises $75M from SiriusXM

#37

Post by braindongle »

Yes! Soundcloud, to me, is meritocracy in music today. Are they, will they, be as evil as everyone else in sneakily selling personal data? Sure, that's beside the point; a society-wide problem. Soundcloud provides a direct connection between fully independent music creators and an audience, large or small. If my music were that good, I would blow up on Soundcloud, at some scale. Disagree? Ask Billie Eilish what she thinks of Soundcloud.

Re: SoundCloud raises $75M from SiriusXM

#38

Post by noxToken »

itake wrote: post #13
S_A_P wrote: post #6

I stopped liking soundcloud when I realized that 99.999999% of my followers are bots. I dont need a bunch of followers that mean nothing. I would rather have 0 than 100 fake followers. I also realized that at my production rate, its cheaper to just use Distrokid and throw things out on iTunes than to hope for discovery on soundcloud. Now I just use sound cloud to distribute examples of hardware mods or how a piece of…

What is wrong with bot followers? Is it like fb where you would be paying to promote your content to fake users?

Some people's audio portfolio is on SoundCloud. You would hope that your followers are people who are enjoying your creations.

Re: SoundCloud raises $75M from SiriusXM

#39

Post by 5040 »

kevinherron wrote: post #21
mxschumacher wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The market cap of SirusXM is almost $32bn, roughly $5bn more than Spotify.

Wow. I know like every new car comes with a trial but I didn’t realize people actually activated it.

A number of stores use Sirius for their background music too.

Re: SoundCloud raises $75M from SiriusXM

#40

Post by 1stcity3rdcoast »

koolba wrote: post #24
kevinherron wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. I know like every new car comes with a trial but I didn’t realize people actually activated it.

They have an incredibly efficient negative cancelation program that hikes the teaser rate to something like $45/mo.

Cancellation is also by phone call only, which creates a lot of friction. I’ve tried to cancel a couple of times, and let it lapse once, and they always end up dropping my rate to $4/mo. Hard to say no to $50/year for 150 more options in your car. Even when the bitrate is like listening to a 1998 mp3.
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