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SoundCloud raises $75M from SiriusXM

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Re: SoundCloud raises $75M from SiriusXM

#91

Post by ilikehurdles »

zippergz wrote: post #27
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.

I use and love it in all of my cars. I have Spotify and Apple Music too, but there's something about actual "radio" without commercials that I enjoy for longer drives.

Sirius is the only decent music discovery service for me since there's some actual human curation going on (at least on their main channel lineup). Spotify is nice when I have playlists prepared and ready to go but that takes work and I get tired of most of my playlist content after a week. Discover Weekly is garbage, and Google Music's version was far worse. Never tried Apple music.

But I've also noticed the repetition on SXM but I've settled on 3-4 channels I like so I switch between them to combat staleness.

Re: SoundCloud raises $75M from SiriusXM

#92

Post by malthaus »

braindongle wrote: post #37

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 t…

That hasn't been the case for a long long time. Especially reposting turned it into yet another spammy service full of promoters. Additionally, discovery is terrible.

There used to be cases of people being discovered, im sure. But a lot of it is not quite the rag-to-riches story they make it seem, especially your example of Billie Eilish.

Re: SoundCloud raises $75M from SiriusXM

#93

Post by myself248 »

murph-almighty wrote: post #65
UI_at_80x24 wrote: post #35

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 s…

I honestly hadn't considered this use case for satellite radio. I used to do 5-6 hour drives through areas with crappy cell service and awful radio (only country, gospel or a sermon). Spotify _helped_ with its download feature so I could play tracks I liked locally, but sadly satellite wasn't an option for me since I was driving an '04 Jeep.

> satellite wasn't an option for me since I was driving an '04 Jeep

How so? If it had an FM tuner, you can use an inline modulator.

Re: SoundCloud raises $75M from SiriusXM

#94

Post by myself248 »

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.

Yeah, I'm looking at getting one of the cheap teaser receivers at BBY and then activating it on a Privacy.com card or a giftcard or something, so they can't pull that even if I forget or am unable to navigate their cancellation hoops.

Re: SoundCloud raises $75M from SiriusXM

#95

Post by jkdufair »

1stcity3rdcoast wrote: post #40
koolba wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It is indeed surprising to me that people can tolerate the low bitrate sound. I would consider subscribing but I can’t stand to actually listen. Do subscribers get a higher bitrate? My impression is that it’s a limitation of the satellite signal bandwidth and the number of channels they cram into it.

Re: SoundCloud raises $75M from SiriusXM

#96

Post by myself248 »

subhro wrote: post #90
briandear wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are a very big deal for aviation. My plane uses XM in-cockpit weather products.

But ADS-B is catching up and quickly. I understand there are a few additional layers in SXM and the resolution is better when looking at 200+NM. I find SXM weather to be kind of extortion because they use publicly available data and sell it just for packaging it nice.

ADS-B isn't a weather product, is it? It tells you where other planes are, it does not tell you about cloud layers, winds-aloft, or other meteorological data. Unless I'm incredibly mistaken.

SXM carries this (along with a ton of other products) in their stream, alongside the audio channels that most people know. Their agricultural products, aviation products, stock-market feed, fuel-price data, and more, are valuable to various markets who buy specialized displays with the receivers integrated into them.

Re: SoundCloud raises $75M from SiriusXM

#97

Post by malthaus »

Not sure what to think of this. SoundCloud has run its course and should just die, leaving space for a new player. There are some around but they can't gain critical traction due to the stickiness of SoundCloud despite having a product which has increasingly gotten worse over time.

For an audio platform, the audio quality is subpar. Terrible discovery. Too many bots & marketing-spammers. No direct monetization scheme for artists. Terrible mobile app (at least on iOS). etc.

Re: SoundCloud raises $75M from SiriusXM

#98

Post by aaronax »

subhro wrote: post #90
briandear wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are a very big deal for aviation. My plane uses XM in-cockpit weather products.

But ADS-B is catching up and quickly. I understand there are a few additional layers in SXM and the resolution is better when looking at 200+NM. I find SXM weather to be kind of extortion because they use publicly available data and sell it just for packaging it nice.

How do you feel about all local news channels, all radio stations, and all weather websites using freely available NOAA data as part of their income-producing content? (Or maybe there is some special thing you know of where those outlets have to pay and SXM gets it for free?)

Re: SoundCloud raises $75M from SiriusXM

#99

Post by myself248 »

subpixel wrote: post #50

I just listen to the streams of the radio stations I love: WWOZ - New Orleans gold mine, especially 2 week audio archive KCRW - live + curated streams Cultura Brasil - a curated, updated stream of Brazilian music BR Heimat - odd, but I find corny alpine brass bands a great working soundtrack WKHR - a high school radio station in Cleveland where old people play 78rpm records

Oooh, I might have to check out that WKHR! I get WAHS over the air here, it's likewise a high school with a bunch of music programs throughout the day. No screaming ads, just the occasional PSA, and the DJs genuinely care about the music. It's a breath of fresh air.

Re: SoundCloud raises $75M from SiriusXM

#100

Post by mojuba »

seppin wrote: post #87
mojuba wrote: post #59

I feel like I'm in the minority of those who love SoundCloud. It's one the very few places for indie music makers and DJs to showcase their work that otherwise may not necessarily be published via the official publishing channels. That includes e.g. long running DJ mixes, not exactly the type of material for the official release bureaucracy and associated costs. The only problem with SoundCloud is that instead of fol…

> I feel like I'm in the minority of those who love SoundCloud. It's the only music streaming service that takes discovery seriously, and it's the only one I use.

Exactly, I love their recommendations based on my likes, love The Upload section. I wonder what algorithms they use. They are pretty good.
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