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SoundCloud launches Go: a subscription service

140 points by radiusvector 11y ago

deleted 11y ago
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bborud 11y ago
If soundcloud has mended their ways with regard to allowing takedowns etc by third parties, this hasn't really been communicated all that well. I used to be a paying customer, but I ditched the service after they allowed Universal to harass their users. That's a while ago though, and I haven't been paying much attention to Soundcloud since. Have they shaped up or should I still avoid them?
- k-mcgrady 11y ago
  >> "If soundcloud has mended their ways with regard to allowing takedowns etc by third parties, this hasn't really been communicated all that well." I had my first take down a few months ago after using the service since it launched. I got 1 strike. A few weeks ago I had another take down but there was no 'strike' mention this time. I'm not sure if this was because Universal requested the first takedown and the second one was automatically caught by SoundCloud's system but it may be that when the second one occurred these deals were finalised so they've stopped the '3 strikes' nonsense.
sarreph 11y ago
I was really hoping that they wouldn't have to pivot into competing with Spotify (somewhat indirectly, although that is TBD depending on what deals they've signed). Here's hoping that the mention of an indie library hints towards a more interesting slant on what exactly subscribers get access to. For example, it would be cool if there was a way to monetise un-signed or newly-signed artists rather than mainstream Spotify territory.
- cageface 11y ago
  Bandcamp covers that territory pretty well now.
  - 6stringmerc 11y ago
    Honestly I don't see Bandcamp as really doing more than filling a niche for artists who refuse to be on Spotify and/or don't know how to get into the 'major' digital outlets like Spotify, iTunes, Google, etc. It's a different ecosystem with all the same 'quality' issues as SoundCloud but not the same social interaction type stuff. I'm not trying to knock it, but I don't see it as a major player outside of a really indie circle (re: critics, obsessives) and not quite the casual listener(s).
cableshaft 11y ago
"If you’re an iOS user, it’ll cost more, with the company charging $12.99 for signups to account for Apple’s mandatory 30 percent cut." I'd be a little surprised if Apple will allow them to do this. It's kind of like credit card companies requiring stores to charge the same price regardless of if you use the credit card (which has fees) instead of cash (which doesn't). Charging different prices is a negative signal for Apple's ecosystem ("Why can I get this cheaper if I have an Android phone? Maybe I want an Android phone instead next time....") While I might argue that the negative signal shoooould exist, I'm surprised Apple doesn't have it in its terms that you can't do that if you want your app on the Apple App Store. Also, could we please amend the title? It's not a flat $12.99 a month for everyone, and it doesn't even match the headline on the actual article.
- Bulk70 11y ago
  Spotify have the exact same pricing model/discrepancy http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/07/08/spotify-is-actively-encouraging-ios-users-to-stop-paying-for-streaming-via-itunes/ http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/07/08/spotify-is-actively...
  - cableshaft 11y ago
    Huh. I guess since I signed up for it through their website so it was always $10/month for me, so I didn't notice. But see, I was an iOS user paying $10/month for Spotify (because I paid on the web). Does Soundcloud offer this, or is it truly every iOS user has to pay through Apple for their subscription to Soundcloud Go, and thus have no choice but to pay more? It seems like it's the latter by the wording of their copy.
- herval 11y ago
  done, looks like TNW clarified it
- 010a 11y ago
  Almost every cloud subscription company already does this.
- 11y ago
toastking 11y ago
$12 a month seems a little steep. Especially when compared to Apple Music and Spotify.
- aiw1nters 11y ago
  it's $9.99 not $12. 125m tracks vs 30m (of Spotify) + offline listening (same with Spotify) + no ads makes it a killer proposition!
  - ericzawo 11y ago
    125m tracks made mostly by guys dinking around with Ableton in their bedroom vs 30m tracks from artists you might actually have heard of. Whatever the proposition in pure numbers is doesn't matter when your experience will suck.
    - aiw1nters 11y ago
      but looks like SoundCloud will have all the Spotify tracks, so still it's a win for them. Plus there are many great mixtapes, podcasts and indie artists there!
  - toxican 11y ago
    If you're suggesting otherwise, Spotify also has offline listening and no ads. Sorry if I misread!
- snickmy 11y ago
  It's 12$ for iOS users, due to Apple cut of 30%. for all the other platforms is 9.9$. for once I welcome this disparity, is a good thing that the users knows the real cost of picking a platform/phone.
f_allwein 11y ago
why doesn't any music service come up with a less expensive price plan? I would like to try one, but am pretty sure I would not use it so much as to justify paying 10$ (or £) per month. How about a less expensive plan with limited features (e.g. only n hours of music per month)?
- toxican 11y ago
  Spotify, Pandora, etc. all have free versions. If you listen so little that you can't justify $10/mo, why not use those? There are ads, but still.
- kevando 11y ago
  $10/month is extremely affordable if you enjoy music.
- JoshGlazebrook 11y ago
  I honestly don't see how the $10 price point can be considered anything but affordable. When individual songs are over $1 each on iTunes and other digital music stores, and one album bought digitally or physically is more than a single month of renting 30+ million songs for a month, the thought of considering $10 to be expensive seems crazy to me. I still have my student discount with Spotify so I only pay $5+tax, but even when I lose the discount, $10 is not expensive to me. Especially for what I get.
- lotso 11y ago
  Rdio tried this. >That $3.99 will buy you only so much. Rdio says the service, called Rdio Select, will include two components: 1) Pandora-like streaming radio stations, without ads, and with the ability to skip ahead as often as you want, and 2) daily access to 25 songs of your choosing. Subscribers will be able to download the 25 songs and replace some or all (or none) of them each day, so long as the number doesn’t exceed 25. http://www.buzzfeed.com/williamalden/rdio-to-launch-cheaper-streaming-service http://www.buzzfeed.com/williamalden/rdio-to-launch-cheaper-...
- sjburt 11y ago
  The real reason is the deals they have with the record labels. There's only 4 record labels, plus a block of indies that make a 5th, and they don't have any interest in picking a winner between the services, so everyone basically pays the same price. The actual deals are quite complex, but under the pricing model that is most advantageous to the streaming service it basically comes down to the labels get about $6.50 a month per subscriber, and then a cut above that. So that's a hard floor, and with the cut and other costs it's hard to make a business on anything less than $10/month. And obviously you can't go above $10. This is also why everyone charges more for Apple customers, if they gave 30% to Apple, there would be no revenue at all.
staticelf 11y ago
How much Spotify cost in the states? As a Swede it costs 99kr which is more than $9. I use Groove and that costs $9 which translates to about 79kr or something like that. It's 20% cheaper for a little less content and a not as good client. The lesser price alone makes the service worth it.
- aiw1nters 11y ago
  price is the same with Spotify. But SoundCloud has 125m tracks vs 30m from Spotify
- ams6110 11y ago
  I don't have Spotify but I do have Google Play Music/Youtube Red. I don't really care about the video part of YouTube but there is a lot of music there and the ad-free is nice. But I actually love the Soundcloud interface, apparently others don't. Very simple, and the ability to move forwards and backwards within a track is so much better than on Google/Youtube's player. If SoundCloud can offer the major label catalogs as well as all the indy and artist content that they have now, I'd very likely switch over.
- coldtea 11y ago
  So, we're talking 20% cheaper for less content and worse client? How does that make the service "worth it"? It sounds like subpar crap in every way but price, and even at that it's nothing to write home about either (a measly $2.5 savings). If one can afford $9/month, I don't see how $11.5 month are prohibiting for a better experience and more content.
  - staticelf 11y ago
    Well, it's not super bad and the content is almost as good. It's not 20% worse. The big thing for me is that Groove works on Xbox, which I have and listen to, otherwise I used to be a Tidal customer. But I know there is a Tidal UWP app coming, then I will switch back.
kdamken 11y ago
I'm not sure I see what this is really offering customers. It seems like just another paywell for creators to put their content behind. While that's good for them, as a consumer I don't really have much motivation to sign up for another streaming service when I already pay for Spotify. If an artist is on Spotify, great, I'll listen to their songs a bunch and they'll make a little money off of me. If it's a group I haven't heard much of before and they're good, I'll probably get more into them and end up seeing them when they tour in my area. If they put themselves exclusively behind another service (cough Kanye West cough Tidal), I'll be forced to find other ways to listen to the album, which will likely be less than profitable for the artist.
- k-mcgrady 11y ago
  >> "If they put themselves exclusively behind another service" I'm not seeing anything about this that's exclusive. It's just another service they can also have their music on but now they can make some money from it instead of nothing.
- radiusvector 11y ago
  Hey there - It's a huge catalog of tracks which contains all content from both emerging and established creators. The full details of which can be found on https://blog.soundcloud.com/ https://blog.soundcloud.com/
  - gregmac 11y ago
    You mean https://blog.soundcloud.com/2016/03/29/introducing-soundcloud-go/ https://blog.soundcloud.com/2016/03/29/introducing-soundclou... I assume SoundCloud will at some point post other blog content and so in a matter of days/weeks this general link will not go to the right spot.
  - kdamken 11y ago
    I read the article - the pros seems to be: - Ad free music - Listen offline - More tracks from established creators The first two are a given with any streaming service. My point was their catalog isn't enough to make me switch over. As an artist, unless you're getting some kind of crazy deal to just be on one of the services, your best bet is to be on every one out there.
k-mcgrady 11y ago
>> "Eventually, everyone from DJs to podcasters will be able to monetize the same way, though the system is invite-only for now." I'm not holding my breath. Overtime SoundCloud releases something cool it's only available to people they invite and never seems to become available to everyone. On top of that I just tried to signup for Go - not available in my country (UK) so I'm guessing, as usual, US only. Pretty sucky for a company based in Germany.
- 6stringmerc 11y ago
  Thanks for pointing that out. Yeah it seems like Dubset and Apple almost forced SoundCloud's hand - I'm already signed up to that collaborative service (Mixbank) and it looks very, very well put together. SoundCloud's reputation hasn't been the greatest lately from the user/producer experience so I'm with you that their 'open-ness' is suspect.
  - snickmy 11y ago
    I doubt Apple forced anything. Soundcloud has been working on this for literally 18 months. the only thing holding on was the Sony deal. Dubset is doing a great job product wise. Really well done, unfortunately they coverage of licensing is really limited. They sort of jumped ahead and sold the platform before closing at least 50% of the deals (see for instance completely absence of the Merlin catalog). Soundcloud has been always open, but struggled a lot in having a communication channel with their users. Seams getting better lately. Finger crossed!
    - 6stringmerc 11y ago
      Fair counter and I was being a bit more tongue in cheek, sorry about that if it came off as sort of ignorant. I agree these deals are massive to construct, and the back-end has to be really interesting from a tech / rights standpoint. It has been, without a doubt, one of the biggest riddles for the instiutional players (re: rights & revenue). Again, sort of trying to be joking about the subject, but I bet it's a lot easier for SoundCloud to get 100% cooperation with major labels/societies by catering exclusively to them, and basically ignoring any potential compensation for the independent content creators (however minor it might be) - yeah I'm kind of slighting Merlin for only capturing its market, because I think there's probably a single digit percentage of content creators unaffiliated...not much, I know... It just kind of feels bitter, like SoundCloud built their honest business on original content (not mashups), and then really is pivoting to the major monied players and hand-waving off the rest. If it's true I can understand it business wise, I can. I just...well, don't particularly like it on a personal level.
6stringmerc 11y ago
I'm trying to find out if there's any announcement by SoundCloud about paying non-RIAA affiliated independents. Yeah yeah I'm pretty sure it's a Nope but it'd be nice to look into. At least Spotify pays. And Apple pays. And Google pays. And Deezr pays. And Tidal pays... Can we please link to an article that doesn't have an egregious pop-up that blocks my screen every two paragraphs? This isn't an exclusive article or subject. Even the AP has a write-up: http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/soundcloud-expands-mainstream-paid-streaming-plan-37999375 http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/soundcloud-exp...
gypsy_boots 11y ago
What will be hard for many consumers and artists is that Soundcloud has so many DJ's and/or podcasters who've been putting out something like a weekly mixtape or podcast for years. Now let's say all of the sudden they now put it behind the paywall. Consumers who have gotten used to getting this free content for years will now be irked. I'm afraid people already equate Soundcloud with great free content, so transitioning to anything else will be difficult.
jupp0r 11y ago
The actual offering left aside, the naming is quite unfortunate.
- k-mcgrady 11y ago
  >> "The actual offering left aside, the naming is quite unfortunate." It seems good to me. One of the major features is offline listening to you can now listen 'on the go'. Am I missing something?
  - geostyx 11y ago
    HBO Go Go (golang) Go (game)
    - k-mcgrady 11y ago
      HBO Go is the only real clash there (very few people are going to confuse an offering by a well known music site with a programming language or board game). I don't see HBO ever making Go available outside the US so it probably won't be a real issue for many people.
      - x1798DE 11y ago
        I think the bigger problem with these generic names is that they are hard to search for and crowd the search space. Go is a common enough word that you'll need to search for `"SoundCloud Go"`, since `SoundCloud Go` will bring up a bunch of unrelated stuff about SoundCloud, e.g. "go to your SoundCloud account panel and..." But using quotes will miss sentences like, "SoundCloud has released a new service, Go."
        roywiggins 11y ago
        Google seems to understand it perfectly. https://www.google.com/search?q=SoundCloud+Go https://www.google.com/search?q=SoundCloud+Go
owenwil 11y ago
While I like SoundCloud a lot, what the hell have they been up to for the last few years? From where I'm sitting Spotify, Apple Music and many more out-innovated them and SoundCloud did... well, nothing.
- 6stringmerc 11y ago
  I think that's a fair perspective. With all these deals shaking out as a customer I'm quite happy with Amazon Prime Music for streaming/mainstream and then purchasing tracks or the occasional album via Beatport/CDs/etc. So now SoundCloud wants creators to pay for a Pro account and listeners to pay for a Go account...hmmm...well it does sound like they are genuinely trying to get revenue up. We'll see if this works.
- ihsw 11y ago
  Just want to throw Google Play Music into the mix (pun intended!) as I have been using it exclusively for the past few months. It is excellent and I cannot recommend it enough, and it is available in Canada (unlike SoundCloud Go).
  - snickmy 11y ago
    Google Play Music deserve a honor spot. they have the best recommendation system in place (radios) and curated playlist (songza acquisition). Unfortunately is a great example that is not always a matter of quality, but more a matter of trend and hype. I'm sure SoundCloud Go will be available in Canada soon.
- aiw1nters 11y ago
  as the article states they were trying to score deals around content derivatives (e.g remixes, dj sets) that never existed before. I wouldn't underestimate that!
  - 6stringmerc 11y ago
    Another article over on Billboard points out that Apple Music and Dubset just announced a system for remixes and DJ sets that actually pays the remixer and DJ a portion of funds while also compensating the original content owners, and about a week before this SoundCloud announcement. I know about it because I'm already signed up and have an account. SoundCloud has provided nothing in the way of notification, tools, or access to a similar platform. Sure, they're getting in better position with the RIAA/Merlin groups but that's not traditionally the value proposition with SoundCloud for listeners/creators. Maybe in time we'll learn more about why SoundCloud and Dubset both have competing systems for license revenue (apparently?!), and which one might be the better of the two.
kogepathic 11y ago
This would explain why they have removed the local cache option in their Android app. In previous versions, you could select how much content to cache locally on the device, up to 100%. This meant if you listened to a song once, you could listen to it again offline. From using their app now, and the website (non-mobile) it seems they have removed all caching completely. Anyway, it's absolutely trivial to download the raw songs (MP3) from SoundCloud using Developer Tools in your favourite browser. It's not the highest quality, but since SoundCloud is 90% user contributed tracks, the original quality is often questionable anyway. I see no added value from this service. Just download the songs as MP3 files and listen to them, offline and ad free!
- johnyfav 11y ago
  This is one of the reasons I don't like the iOS app. There was never any caching. On the commute to work (where I listen to the most music) I could listen to the same track as long as I had net connection which isn't always the case. I feel that they have taken a step back on their apps recently.
  - lavezzi 11y ago
    No, there used to be caching before they switched to the redesigned iOS app.
oldmanhorton 11y ago
This would be appealing if the Soundcloud apps (including web) werent so atrocious. Navigating through your collection on Android is a mess, and the webapp shows as few as 2 tracks on a full laptop screen (while eating up gigabytes of RAM after only casual listening). I still love how the webapp "shuffle" mode will only shuffle through the songs already loaded by the client, so its just a mix of your most recent 25 or 50 songs.
- joshstrange 11y ago
  The iOS app (last I used it, 1-2 months ago) was trash as well. Constant issues with buffering, no offline, crashing all the time. I use Mixcloud exclusively now and while it doesn't have offline either it works 1000x better and has more of what I really want.
kevando 11y ago
I regularly avoid soundcloud because I dont want to use my data, so I am very excited about this offline feature
dominotw 11y ago
I used to use soundcloud all the time but switched to 'Discover weekely' on Spotify, like the author of the article. Spotify hit it out of park with Discover weekly. One downside of spotify is still discoverability, discover weekly doesn't introduce you to completely new kinds of music, it sticks to what you already like. You are on you own to introduce randomness into spotify's discovery algorithms. I think Rdio had that right idea here. I was discovering much more new music when I was with Rdio than with Spotify. Spotify leans heavily towards what is popular.
- jlewallen 11y ago
  I'm a huge Spotify fan and if you've found Discover weekly useful you might like the following other resources for discovering new music: http://furia.com/newparticles/current.html http://furia.com/newparticles/current.html http://everynoise.com/engenremap.html http://everynoise.com/engenremap.html https://open.spotify.com/user/spotify/playlist/3rgsDhGHZxZ9sB9DQWQfuf https://open.spotify.com/user/spotify/playlist/3rgsDhGHZxZ9s... There's more, of course but I agree that many of the curated playlists lean towards popular music. I also follow /r/spotify on reddit and every now and then there's a good playlist on there.
- ethanbond 11y ago
  So sad that Rdio is gone. Their discovery and design were both fantastic. I can't bring myself to use Spotify, but I've been using Deezer in the meantime. Its immaturity (as a product) shows, but it gets the basics right and the UI isn't nearly as confusing as Spotify's.
- Futurebot 11y ago
  Agree completely. Rdio did a much better job with music discovery, but they were limited by selection. Soundcloud doesn't have typical discovery features, but the ones they do have are quite good. Here's how I find good (relatively unknown/esoteric) music there: - Follow good aggregator accounts. These repost new music regularly, which appears in one's timeline. - Follow good regular accounts and play their "likes." - Go to a song's "related tracks" screen and play those I find excellent music on a regular basis this way.
hnexamazon 11y ago
I am a long-time user of Soundcloud that has recently stepped back from the service. As an EDM enthusiast, the service is the best place for finding up-and-coming talent and great remixes that you can't find anywhere else. The killer feature is the personal stream. Once you've started following a large enough pool of artists and labels, there is no better mechanism for wading through the pool of mediocrity to search out those rare gems. Unfortunately, Soundcloud's method for organizing your content really breaks down under heavy use. I have over 1000 songs liked, and scrolling through the like list, dynamically fetching ten songs at a time, is a huge pain. Playlist creation and maintenance is even more cumbersome and limited than Spotify, which is saying something. Worst of all, the usefulness of the stream, arguably Soundcloud's most unique and valuable listener-facing feature, really breaks down the longer you're using the service. Most heavy users I know end up following over a few hundred artists/labels/channels, accumulated over years of use, and the signal-to-noise ratio becomes unbearable. The sad thing is that the breakdown is purely a UX problem. The webapp is an infinite-scroll nightmare: forcing you to start at the top of the stream every time and fetch tracks 10 at a time. It doesn't clean up after itself, so after an hour of slowly chipping away through your feed, the browser gets so slow and unresponsive on my top-spec Macbook Pro that I often give up and don't bother trying to listen to new tracks that have been posted to my feed over 18 hours ago. Of course, as I now check Soundcloud less and less frequently, that means I am missing a ton of content. On top of that, due to Soundcloud's reputation as solely a promotional tool within the artist community, you end up wading through a ton of 1 - 2 minute previews and other low-quality throwaways, and songs that you like can disappear from the service at any time, without notice. You cannot build a stable music library on top of the service. In fact, I used to have a process where I'd look for new songs on Soundcloud, and if I found something good, look it up on Spotify and save it within my Spotify collection, because I knew it wouldn't just disappear on me after a few months. Once Spotify upped their discovery game and the available EDM content grew, I removed Soundcloud from the process entirely. Soundcloud used to be the best game in town for music discovery, especially EDM, but they let that slip over the last few years of struggling to monetize and Spotify's constant progression has now really chipped away that advantage. I've signed up for this GO service, but I highly doubt I'll keep it past the 30 day free trial. $10 a month for offline download and removing ads? As far as I can tell, my stream is the same mess as it was before, and they don't even distinguish between GO-exclusive and free tracks. I don't see anywhere where I can find GO-exclusive tracks within the app at all, actually. New music discovery is hard and the big players (Spotify, Apple Music, Google Play) still haven't fully cracked it, at least for specific-niche enthusiasts like myself. When the Soundcloud stream is working well, it is the best interface I've used for finding new music I like, but the complete lack of focus and neglect on that front from this initiative means that I probably won't be coming back.
JonFish85 11y ago
Taking on Spotify seems like an odd choice to me. To me it would seem that Spotify has a huge fight ahead of it, even though it has raised well over a billion dollars at this point. They're fighting against the platforms that already exist: Apple Music & Google Play. Apple Music offers basically the same thing except with tighter integration with their hardware (and iTunes for buying the songs that artists don't allow to be streamed), as does Google Play. It seems to me that Spotify is fighting an uphill battle saddled with an enormous valuation ($10b-ish I believe?); SoundCloud really wants to fight against them for whoever is left after Google & Apple? And, through all of this, Spotify & SoundCloud are paying a huge chunk of their mobile revenue directly to their competitors (Apple/Google stores). It doesn't sound like a space that I want to be in!
- tedmiston 11y ago
  > And, through all of this, Spotify & SoundCloud are paying a huge chunk of their mobile revenue directly to their competitors (Apple/Google stores). I'm not so sure they are. By charging a higher price ($12.99 in app vs. $9.99 on web), I wonder if people really are paying the higher price just for convenience. I'm definitely not. Tidal is currently doing the same with their pricing structure.
  - pmilla1606 11y ago
    The price difference between in-app (ios) vs. web is due to Apple's 30% fee for in-app purchase. http://www.theverge.com/2015/7/8/8913105/spotify-apple-app-store-email http://www.theverge.com/2015/7/8/8913105/spotify-apple-app-s...
- snickmy 11y ago
  The thing that differentiate Soundcloud from all the competitors you are mentioning is the social network that it's build on. Hence the size of the catalog that is by far (3.5x) bigger. In other words, if you want to find something completely exclusive and never heard before, Soundcloud is the place to go. If that content is good quality or not, is another topic :)
alistproducer2 11y ago
Not that I'm opposed to Soundcloud charging money, but I've been concerned with what happens to all that cool music if/when the business model fails. I've been dreaming up a way to use ipfs, ethereum, and other distributed tech to create a user-owned, cryptocurrency sustained soundcloud that would persist. for anyone interested, I've got a rough use case disagram here https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4gkEhfnwSVBZDE5TGtSUFlmYWc/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4gkEhfnwSVBZDE5TGtSUFlmYWc...
alistproducer2 11y ago
Not that I'm opposed to Soundcloud charging money, but I've been concerned with what happens to all that cool music if/when the business model fails. I've been dreaming up a way to use ipfs, ethereum, and other distributed tech to create a user-owned, cryptocurrency sustained soundcloud that would persist. for anyone interested, I've got a rough use case disagram here https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4gkEhfnwSVBZDE5TGtSUFlmYWc/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4gkEhfnwSVBZDE5TGtSUFlmYWc...
deleted 11y ago
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Artistry121 11y ago
Their competitive advantage will be their unique catalog and social features but Google with YouTube Red already provides a similar catalog and experience. Most remixes I find on Soundcloud I've also been able to find on YouTube and YouTube has more live clips in my experience. Either the brand value of soundcloud is high, it can attract artists to post exclusives on its site or the second-by-second social feature is an important deal or they will have difficulty competing with Google Play/YouTube Red and the others.
_jomo 11y ago
SoundCloud Go is not available in Germany. It's kind of ironic given it's a Berlin, Germany based company. I wonder if this is due to GEMA preventing them from offering Go for an acceptable price. Unfortunately many services (including YouTube) have this problem.
- pjmlp 11y ago
  I really hate them, specially the taxes even on school songs.
bertiewhykovich 11y ago
The cognitive load of differentiating between everything named "Go" in the tech ecosystem is giving me a migraine.

140 points by radiusvector 11y ago

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

If soundcloud has mended their ways with regard to allowing takedowns etc by third parties, this hasn't really been communicated all that well. I used to be a paying customer, but I ditched the service after they allowed Universal to harass their users. That's a while ago though, and I haven't been paying much attention to Soundcloud since. Have they shaped up or should I still avoid them?

k-mcgrady 11y ago
>> "If soundcloud has mended their ways with regard to allowing takedowns etc by third parties, this hasn't really been communicated all that well." I had my first take down a few months ago after using the service since it launched. I got 1 strike. A few weeks ago I had another take down but there was no 'strike' mention this time. I'm not sure if this was because Universal requested the first takedown and the second one was automatically caught by SoundCloud's system but it may be that when the second one occurred these deals were finalised so they've stopped the '3 strikes' nonsense.

sarreph 11y ago

I was really hoping that they wouldn't have to pivot into competing with Spotify (somewhat indirectly, although that is TBD depending on what deals they've signed). Here's hoping that the mention of an indie library hints towards a more interesting slant on what exactly subscribers get access to. For example, it would be cool if there was a way to monetise un-signed or newly-signed artists rather than mainstream Spotify territory.

cageface 11y ago
Bandcamp covers that territory pretty well now.
- 6stringmerc 11y ago
  Honestly I don't see Bandcamp as really doing more than filling a niche for artists who refuse to be on Spotify and/or don't know how to get into the 'major' digital outlets like Spotify, iTunes, Google, etc. It's a different ecosystem with all the same 'quality' issues as SoundCloud but not the same social interaction type stuff. I'm not trying to knock it, but I don't see it as a major player outside of a really indie circle (re: critics, obsessives) and not quite the casual listener(s).

cableshaft 11y ago

"If you’re an iOS user, it’ll cost more, with the company charging $12.99 for signups to account for Apple’s mandatory 30 percent cut." I'd be a little surprised if Apple will allow them to do this. It's kind of like credit card companies requiring stores to charge the same price regardless of if you use the credit card (which has fees) instead of cash (which doesn't). Charging different prices is a negative signal for Apple's ecosystem ("Why can I get this cheaper if I have an Android phone? Maybe I want an Android phone instead next time....") While I might argue that the negative signal shoooould exist, I'm surprised Apple doesn't have it in its terms that you can't do that if you want your app on the Apple App Store. Also, could we please amend the title? It's not a flat $12.99 a month for everyone, and it doesn't even match the headline on the actual article.

Bulk70 11y ago
Spotify have the exact same pricing model/discrepancy http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/07/08/spotify-is-actively-encouraging-ios-users-to-stop-paying-for-streaming-via-itunes/ http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/07/08/spotify-is-actively...
- cableshaft 11y ago
  Huh. I guess since I signed up for it through their website so it was always $10/month for me, so I didn't notice. But see, I was an iOS user paying $10/month for Spotify (because I paid on the web). Does Soundcloud offer this, or is it truly every iOS user has to pay through Apple for their subscription to Soundcloud Go, and thus have no choice but to pay more? It seems like it's the latter by the wording of their copy.
herval 11y ago
done, looks like TNW clarified it
010a 11y ago
Almost every cloud subscription company already does this.
11y ago

toastking 11y ago

$12 a month seems a little steep. Especially when compared to Apple Music and Spotify.

aiw1nters 11y ago
it's $9.99 not $12. 125m tracks vs 30m (of Spotify) + offline listening (same with Spotify) + no ads makes it a killer proposition!
- ericzawo 11y ago
  125m tracks made mostly by guys dinking around with Ableton in their bedroom vs 30m tracks from artists you might actually have heard of. Whatever the proposition in pure numbers is doesn't matter when your experience will suck.
  - aiw1nters 11y ago
    but looks like SoundCloud will have all the Spotify tracks, so still it's a win for them. Plus there are many great mixtapes, podcasts and indie artists there!
- toxican 11y ago
  If you're suggesting otherwise, Spotify also has offline listening and no ads. Sorry if I misread!
snickmy 11y ago
It's 12$ for iOS users, due to Apple cut of 30%. for all the other platforms is 9.9$. for once I welcome this disparity, is a good thing that the users knows the real cost of picking a platform/phone.

f_allwein 11y ago

why doesn't any music service come up with a less expensive price plan? I would like to try one, but am pretty sure I would not use it so much as to justify paying 10$ (or £) per month. How about a less expensive plan with limited features (e.g. only n hours of music per month)?

toxican 11y ago
Spotify, Pandora, etc. all have free versions. If you listen so little that you can't justify $10/mo, why not use those? There are ads, but still.
kevando 11y ago
$10/month is extremely affordable if you enjoy music.
JoshGlazebrook 11y ago
I honestly don't see how the $10 price point can be considered anything but affordable. When individual songs are over $1 each on iTunes and other digital music stores, and one album bought digitally or physically is more than a single month of renting 30+ million songs for a month, the thought of considering $10 to be expensive seems crazy to me. I still have my student discount with Spotify so I only pay $5+tax, but even when I lose the discount, $10 is not expensive to me. Especially for what I get.
lotso 11y ago
Rdio tried this. >That $3.99 will buy you only so much. Rdio says the service, called Rdio Select, will include two components: 1) Pandora-like streaming radio stations, without ads, and with the ability to skip ahead as often as you want, and 2) daily access to 25 songs of your choosing. Subscribers will be able to download the 25 songs and replace some or all (or none) of them each day, so long as the number doesn’t exceed 25. http://www.buzzfeed.com/williamalden/rdio-to-launch-cheaper-streaming-service http://www.buzzfeed.com/williamalden/rdio-to-launch-cheaper-...
sjburt 11y ago
The real reason is the deals they have with the record labels. There's only 4 record labels, plus a block of indies that make a 5th, and they don't have any interest in picking a winner between the services, so everyone basically pays the same price. The actual deals are quite complex, but under the pricing model that is most advantageous to the streaming service it basically comes down to the labels get about $6.50 a month per subscriber, and then a cut above that. So that's a hard floor, and with the cut and other costs it's hard to make a business on anything less than $10/month. And obviously you can't go above $10. This is also why everyone charges more for Apple customers, if they gave 30% to Apple, there would be no revenue at all.

staticelf 11y ago

How much Spotify cost in the states? As a Swede it costs 99kr which is more than $9. I use Groove and that costs $9 which translates to about 79kr or something like that. It's 20% cheaper for a little less content and a not as good client. The lesser price alone makes the service worth it.

aiw1nters 11y ago
price is the same with Spotify. But SoundCloud has 125m tracks vs 30m from Spotify
ams6110 11y ago
I don't have Spotify but I do have Google Play Music/Youtube Red. I don't really care about the video part of YouTube but there is a lot of music there and the ad-free is nice. But I actually love the Soundcloud interface, apparently others don't. Very simple, and the ability to move forwards and backwards within a track is so much better than on Google/Youtube's player. If SoundCloud can offer the major label catalogs as well as all the indy and artist content that they have now, I'd very likely switch over.
coldtea 11y ago
So, we're talking 20% cheaper for less content and worse client? How does that make the service "worth it"? It sounds like subpar crap in every way but price, and even at that it's nothing to write home about either (a measly $2.5 savings). If one can afford $9/month, I don't see how $11.5 month are prohibiting for a better experience and more content.
- staticelf 11y ago
  Well, it's not super bad and the content is almost as good. It's not 20% worse. The big thing for me is that Groove works on Xbox, which I have and listen to, otherwise I used to be a Tidal customer. But I know there is a Tidal UWP app coming, then I will switch back.

kdamken 11y ago

I'm not sure I see what this is really offering customers. It seems like just another paywell for creators to put their content behind. While that's good for them, as a consumer I don't really have much motivation to sign up for another streaming service when I already pay for Spotify. If an artist is on Spotify, great, I'll listen to their songs a bunch and they'll make a little money off of me. If it's a group I haven't heard much of before and they're good, I'll probably get more into them and end up seeing them when they tour in my area. If they put themselves exclusively behind another service (cough Kanye West cough Tidal), I'll be forced to find other ways to listen to the album, which will likely be less than profitable for the artist.

k-mcgrady 11y ago
>> "If they put themselves exclusively behind another service" I'm not seeing anything about this that's exclusive. It's just another service they can also have their music on but now they can make some money from it instead of nothing.
radiusvector 11y ago
Hey there - It's a huge catalog of tracks which contains all content from both emerging and established creators. The full details of which can be found on https://blog.soundcloud.com/ https://blog.soundcloud.com/
- gregmac 11y ago
  You mean https://blog.soundcloud.com/2016/03/29/introducing-soundcloud-go/ https://blog.soundcloud.com/2016/03/29/introducing-soundclou... I assume SoundCloud will at some point post other blog content and so in a matter of days/weeks this general link will not go to the right spot.
- kdamken 11y ago
  I read the article - the pros seems to be: - Ad free music - Listen offline - More tracks from established creators The first two are a given with any streaming service. My point was their catalog isn't enough to make me switch over. As an artist, unless you're getting some kind of crazy deal to just be on one of the services, your best bet is to be on every one out there.

k-mcgrady 11y ago

>> "Eventually, everyone from DJs to podcasters will be able to monetize the same way, though the system is invite-only for now." I'm not holding my breath. Overtime SoundCloud releases something cool it's only available to people they invite and never seems to become available to everyone. On top of that I just tried to signup for Go - not available in my country (UK) so I'm guessing, as usual, US only. Pretty sucky for a company based in Germany.

6stringmerc 11y ago
Thanks for pointing that out. Yeah it seems like Dubset and Apple almost forced SoundCloud's hand - I'm already signed up to that collaborative service (Mixbank) and it looks very, very well put together. SoundCloud's reputation hasn't been the greatest lately from the user/producer experience so I'm with you that their 'open-ness' is suspect.
- snickmy 11y ago
  I doubt Apple forced anything. Soundcloud has been working on this for literally 18 months. the only thing holding on was the Sony deal. Dubset is doing a great job product wise. Really well done, unfortunately they coverage of licensing is really limited. They sort of jumped ahead and sold the platform before closing at least 50% of the deals (see for instance completely absence of the Merlin catalog). Soundcloud has been always open, but struggled a lot in having a communication channel with their users. Seams getting better lately. Finger crossed!
  - 6stringmerc 11y ago
    Fair counter and I was being a bit more tongue in cheek, sorry about that if it came off as sort of ignorant. I agree these deals are massive to construct, and the back-end has to be really interesting from a tech / rights standpoint. It has been, without a doubt, one of the biggest riddles for the instiutional players (re: rights & revenue). Again, sort of trying to be joking about the subject, but I bet it's a lot easier for SoundCloud to get 100% cooperation with major labels/societies by catering exclusively to them, and basically ignoring any potential compensation for the independent content creators (however minor it might be) - yeah I'm kind of slighting Merlin for only capturing its market, because I think there's probably a single digit percentage of content creators unaffiliated...not much, I know... It just kind of feels bitter, like SoundCloud built their honest business on original content (not mashups), and then really is pivoting to the major monied players and hand-waving off the rest. If it's true I can understand it business wise, I can. I just...well, don't particularly like it on a personal level.

6stringmerc 11y ago

I'm trying to find out if there's any announcement by SoundCloud about paying non-RIAA affiliated independents. Yeah yeah I'm pretty sure it's a Nope but it'd be nice to look into. At least Spotify pays. And Apple pays. And Google pays. And Deezr pays. And Tidal pays... Can we please link to an article that doesn't have an egregious pop-up that blocks my screen every two paragraphs? This isn't an exclusive article or subject. Even the AP has a write-up: http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/soundcloud-expands-mainstream-paid-streaming-plan-37999375 http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/soundcloud-exp...

gypsy_boots 11y ago

What will be hard for many consumers and artists is that Soundcloud has so many DJ's and/or podcasters who've been putting out something like a weekly mixtape or podcast for years. Now let's say all of the sudden they now put it behind the paywall. Consumers who have gotten used to getting this free content for years will now be irked. I'm afraid people already equate Soundcloud with great free content, so transitioning to anything else will be difficult.

jupp0r 11y ago

The actual offering left aside, the naming is quite unfortunate.

k-mcgrady 11y ago
>> "The actual offering left aside, the naming is quite unfortunate." It seems good to me. One of the major features is offline listening to you can now listen 'on the go'. Am I missing something?
- geostyx 11y ago
  HBO Go Go (golang) Go (game)
  - k-mcgrady 11y ago
    HBO Go is the only real clash there (very few people are going to confuse an offering by a well known music site with a programming language or board game). I don't see HBO ever making Go available outside the US so it probably won't be a real issue for many people.
    - x1798DE 11y ago
      I think the bigger problem with these generic names is that they are hard to search for and crowd the search space. Go is a common enough word that you'll need to search for `"SoundCloud Go"`, since `SoundCloud Go` will bring up a bunch of unrelated stuff about SoundCloud, e.g. "go to your SoundCloud account panel and..." But using quotes will miss sentences like, "SoundCloud has released a new service, Go."
      - roywiggins 11y ago
        Google seems to understand it perfectly. https://www.google.com/search?q=SoundCloud+Go https://www.google.com/search?q=SoundCloud+Go

owenwil 11y ago

While I like SoundCloud a lot, what the hell have they been up to for the last few years? From where I'm sitting Spotify, Apple Music and many more out-innovated them and SoundCloud did... well, nothing.

6stringmerc 11y ago
I think that's a fair perspective. With all these deals shaking out as a customer I'm quite happy with Amazon Prime Music for streaming/mainstream and then purchasing tracks or the occasional album via Beatport/CDs/etc. So now SoundCloud wants creators to pay for a Pro account and listeners to pay for a Go account...hmmm...well it does sound like they are genuinely trying to get revenue up. We'll see if this works.
ihsw 11y ago
Just want to throw Google Play Music into the mix (pun intended!) as I have been using it exclusively for the past few months. It is excellent and I cannot recommend it enough, and it is available in Canada (unlike SoundCloud Go).
- snickmy 11y ago
  Google Play Music deserve a honor spot. they have the best recommendation system in place (radios) and curated playlist (songza acquisition). Unfortunately is a great example that is not always a matter of quality, but more a matter of trend and hype. I'm sure SoundCloud Go will be available in Canada soon.
aiw1nters 11y ago
as the article states they were trying to score deals around content derivatives (e.g remixes, dj sets) that never existed before. I wouldn't underestimate that!
- 6stringmerc 11y ago
  Another article over on Billboard points out that Apple Music and Dubset just announced a system for remixes and DJ sets that actually pays the remixer and DJ a portion of funds while also compensating the original content owners, and about a week before this SoundCloud announcement. I know about it because I'm already signed up and have an account. SoundCloud has provided nothing in the way of notification, tools, or access to a similar platform. Sure, they're getting in better position with the RIAA/Merlin groups but that's not traditionally the value proposition with SoundCloud for listeners/creators. Maybe in time we'll learn more about why SoundCloud and Dubset both have competing systems for license revenue (apparently?!), and which one might be the better of the two.

kogepathic 11y ago

This would explain why they have removed the local cache option in their Android app. In previous versions, you could select how much content to cache locally on the device, up to 100%. This meant if you listened to a song once, you could listen to it again offline. From using their app now, and the website (non-mobile) it seems they have removed all caching completely. Anyway, it's absolutely trivial to download the raw songs (MP3) from SoundCloud using Developer Tools in your favourite browser. It's not the highest quality, but since SoundCloud is 90% user contributed tracks, the original quality is often questionable anyway. I see no added value from this service. Just download the songs as MP3 files and listen to them, offline and ad free!

johnyfav 11y ago
This is one of the reasons I don't like the iOS app. There was never any caching. On the commute to work (where I listen to the most music) I could listen to the same track as long as I had net connection which isn't always the case. I feel that they have taken a step back on their apps recently.
- lavezzi 11y ago
  No, there used to be caching before they switched to the redesigned iOS app.

oldmanhorton 11y ago

This would be appealing if the Soundcloud apps (including web) werent so atrocious. Navigating through your collection on Android is a mess, and the webapp shows as few as 2 tracks on a full laptop screen (while eating up gigabytes of RAM after only casual listening). I still love how the webapp "shuffle" mode will only shuffle through the songs already loaded by the client, so its just a mix of your most recent 25 or 50 songs.

joshstrange 11y ago
The iOS app (last I used it, 1-2 months ago) was trash as well. Constant issues with buffering, no offline, crashing all the time. I use Mixcloud exclusively now and while it doesn't have offline either it works 1000x better and has more of what I really want.

kevando 11y ago

I regularly avoid soundcloud because I dont want to use my data, so I am very excited about this offline feature

dominotw 11y ago

I used to use soundcloud all the time but switched to 'Discover weekely' on Spotify, like the author of the article. Spotify hit it out of park with Discover weekly. One downside of spotify is still discoverability, discover weekly doesn't introduce you to completely new kinds of music, it sticks to what you already like. You are on you own to introduce randomness into spotify's discovery algorithms. I think Rdio had that right idea here. I was discovering much more new music when I was with Rdio than with Spotify. Spotify leans heavily towards what is popular.

jlewallen 11y ago
I'm a huge Spotify fan and if you've found Discover weekly useful you might like the following other resources for discovering new music: http://furia.com/newparticles/current.html http://furia.com/newparticles/current.html http://everynoise.com/engenremap.html http://everynoise.com/engenremap.html https://open.spotify.com/user/spotify/playlist/3rgsDhGHZxZ9sB9DQWQfuf https://open.spotify.com/user/spotify/playlist/3rgsDhGHZxZ9s... There's more, of course but I agree that many of the curated playlists lean towards popular music. I also follow /r/spotify on reddit and every now and then there's a good playlist on there.
ethanbond 11y ago
So sad that Rdio is gone. Their discovery and design were both fantastic. I can't bring myself to use Spotify, but I've been using Deezer in the meantime. Its immaturity (as a product) shows, but it gets the basics right and the UI isn't nearly as confusing as Spotify's.
Futurebot 11y ago
Agree completely. Rdio did a much better job with music discovery, but they were limited by selection. Soundcloud doesn't have typical discovery features, but the ones they do have are quite good. Here's how I find good (relatively unknown/esoteric) music there: - Follow good aggregator accounts. These repost new music regularly, which appears in one's timeline. - Follow good regular accounts and play their "likes." - Go to a song's "related tracks" screen and play those I find excellent music on a regular basis this way.

hnexamazon 11y ago

I am a long-time user of Soundcloud that has recently stepped back from the service. As an EDM enthusiast, the service is the best place for finding up-and-coming talent and great remixes that you can't find anywhere else. The killer feature is the personal stream. Once you've started following a large enough pool of artists and labels, there is no better mechanism for wading through the pool of mediocrity to search out those rare gems. Unfortunately, Soundcloud's method for organizing your content really breaks down under heavy use. I have over 1000 songs liked, and scrolling through the like list, dynamically fetching ten songs at a time, is a huge pain. Playlist creation and maintenance is even more cumbersome and limited than Spotify, which is saying something. Worst of all, the usefulness of the stream, arguably Soundcloud's most unique and valuable listener-facing feature, really breaks down the longer you're using the service. Most heavy users I know end up following over a few hundred artists/labels/channels, accumulated over years of use, and the signal-to-noise ratio becomes unbearable. The sad thing is that the breakdown is purely a UX problem. The webapp is an infinite-scroll nightmare: forcing you to start at the top of the stream every time and fetch tracks 10 at a time. It doesn't clean up after itself, so after an hour of slowly chipping away through your feed, the browser gets so slow and unresponsive on my top-spec Macbook Pro that I often give up and don't bother trying to listen to new tracks that have been posted to my feed over 18 hours ago. Of course, as I now check Soundcloud less and less frequently, that means I am missing a ton of content. On top of that, due to Soundcloud's reputation as solely a promotional tool within the artist community, you end up wading through a ton of 1 - 2 minute previews and other low-quality throwaways, and songs that you like can disappear from the service at any time, without notice. You cannot build a stable music library on top of the service. In fact, I used to have a process where I'd look for new songs on Soundcloud, and if I found something good, look it up on Spotify and save it within my Spotify collection, because I knew it wouldn't just disappear on me after a few months. Once Spotify upped their discovery game and the available EDM content grew, I removed Soundcloud from the process entirely. Soundcloud used to be the best game in town for music discovery, especially EDM, but they let that slip over the last few years of struggling to monetize and Spotify's constant progression has now really chipped away that advantage. I've signed up for this GO service, but I highly doubt I'll keep it past the 30 day free trial. $10 a month for offline download and removing ads? As far as I can tell, my stream is the same mess as it was before, and they don't even distinguish between GO-exclusive and free tracks. I don't see anywhere where I can find GO-exclusive tracks within the app at all, actually. New music discovery is hard and the big players (Spotify, Apple Music, Google Play) still haven't fully cracked it, at least for specific-niche enthusiasts like myself. When the Soundcloud stream is working well, it is the best interface I've used for finding new music I like, but the complete lack of focus and neglect on that front from this initiative means that I probably won't be coming back.

JonFish85 11y ago

Taking on Spotify seems like an odd choice to me. To me it would seem that Spotify has a huge fight ahead of it, even though it has raised well over a billion dollars at this point. They're fighting against the platforms that already exist: Apple Music & Google Play. Apple Music offers basically the same thing except with tighter integration with their hardware (and iTunes for buying the songs that artists don't allow to be streamed), as does Google Play. It seems to me that Spotify is fighting an uphill battle saddled with an enormous valuation ($10b-ish I believe?); SoundCloud really wants to fight against them for whoever is left after Google & Apple? And, through all of this, Spotify & SoundCloud are paying a huge chunk of their mobile revenue directly to their competitors (Apple/Google stores). It doesn't sound like a space that I want to be in!

tedmiston 11y ago
> And, through all of this, Spotify & SoundCloud are paying a huge chunk of their mobile revenue directly to their competitors (Apple/Google stores). I'm not so sure they are. By charging a higher price ($12.99 in app vs. $9.99 on web), I wonder if people really are paying the higher price just for convenience. I'm definitely not. Tidal is currently doing the same with their pricing structure.
- pmilla1606 11y ago
  The price difference between in-app (ios) vs. web is due to Apple's 30% fee for in-app purchase. http://www.theverge.com/2015/7/8/8913105/spotify-apple-app-store-email http://www.theverge.com/2015/7/8/8913105/spotify-apple-app-s...
snickmy 11y ago
The thing that differentiate Soundcloud from all the competitors you are mentioning is the social network that it's build on. Hence the size of the catalog that is by far (3.5x) bigger. In other words, if you want to find something completely exclusive and never heard before, Soundcloud is the place to go. If that content is good quality or not, is another topic :)

alistproducer2 11y ago

Not that I'm opposed to Soundcloud charging money, but I've been concerned with what happens to all that cool music if/when the business model fails. I've been dreaming up a way to use ipfs, ethereum, and other distributed tech to create a user-owned, cryptocurrency sustained soundcloud that would persist. for anyone interested, I've got a rough use case disagram here https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4gkEhfnwSVBZDE5TGtSUFlmYWc/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4gkEhfnwSVBZDE5TGtSUFlmYWc...

alistproducer2 11y ago

deleted 11y ago

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Artistry121 11y ago

Their competitive advantage will be their unique catalog and social features but Google with YouTube Red already provides a similar catalog and experience. Most remixes I find on Soundcloud I've also been able to find on YouTube and YouTube has more live clips in my experience. Either the brand value of soundcloud is high, it can attract artists to post exclusives on its site or the second-by-second social feature is an important deal or they will have difficulty competing with Google Play/YouTube Red and the others.

_jomo 11y ago

SoundCloud Go is not available in Germany. It's kind of ironic given it's a Berlin, Germany based company. I wonder if this is due to GEMA preventing them from offering Go for an acceptable price. Unfortunately many services (including YouTube) have this problem.

pjmlp 11y ago
I really hate them, specially the taxes even on school songs.

bertiewhykovich 11y ago

The cognitive load of differentiating between everything named "Go" in the tech ecosystem is giving me a migraine.