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> Some rough news today for SoundCloud, the audio streaming site whose content is largely based around uploads from its 175 million users in 190 countries. Doe

> Some rough news today for SoundCloud, the audio streaming site whose content is largely based around uploads from its 175 million users in 190 countries. Does SoundCloud see itself as an audio streaming service now, as opposed to an audio hosting service? That seems like a focus shift away from where they started, and puts them up against behemoths like Spotify. Maybe that's related to why they're struggling. Tangentially: does anyone have any idea of how Bandcamp is doing?

cookiecaper 9y ago
File hosting is just not a profitable enterprise. This pattern should be familiar by now: gain prominence by giving away tons of stuff to draw in users, and then clamp down when the bill comes due, resulting in a hard pivot that alienates the users. The truth is that users are not loyal. If you are offering something for free, they will be happy to take it, and they will have no qualms about moving on when you stop giving them the free stuff that they came for. Selling eyeballs is a very tough business. People who want a realistic chance to make money should have plans besides "sell ads".
- jonbarker 9y ago
  Isn't facebook basically file hosting with a bunch of links?
  - dredmorbius 9y ago
    Yes, though it's 1) the largest such service with 2) some very sticky features. (Not that I use it.) Realise that the flipside of such services is their real customers -- the adverts side. For online advertising, the two largest agencies claim over 60% of the market, and are named "Google" and "Facebook". Everyone else is an also-ran. Which for any ads purchaser means "a lot more work for a lot less reach".
  - cookiecaper 9y ago
    Facebook is infrastructure. It provides the connections out to your personal network. Facebook's staying power comes from its ability to say "This is the best way to communicate with your personal network at any time". "File hosting" is just one subelement of that, because one of the things that you may want to share is a file. Couldn't the whole internet be generalized as "file hosting with a bunch of links"? A "file host" is a company whose primary purpose is for you to upload a file and give the link to someone else; they're a middleman that exists only because a more convenient/direct means of distribution to the intended network isn't available. This does not make the company nearly loud enough to establish its own identity/user base. Facebook has always been its own repository of people intelligence. It was never just an "upload your photos here". Such platforms, like Photobucket or Imgur, sometimes prosper for a while, until the communication channels that reach the intended audience directly offer something easier. (imgur is going down now as reddit introduced its own image host last year)
  - jonbarker 9y ago
    Was actually just trying to create a counterpoint to the claim that file hosting services don't make money. Facebook is a hosting service for pictures and comments, and it makes money.
- aphextron 9y ago
  >File hosting is just not a profitable enterprise. Yep. There's simply no money in just "pushing bits" anymore. That business has been consolidated by people like Google and Amazon. You have to both provide a valuable service, as well as create a "network effect" around your product. Otherwise you're easily susceptible to being out competed.
jameskegel 9y ago
Bandcamp, Spotify, and Pandora are for the most part an afterthought to my social circle compared to SoundCloud. I'm genuinely surprised they aren't doing well; they have great engineers and have a fearless attitude that helped them reach a large audience quickly
conradfr 9y ago
Love using Bandcamp. Apparently great[1] and profitable since 2012[2]. [1] https://daily.bandcamp.com/2017/01/24/everything-is-terrific-the-bandcamp-2016-year-in-review/ https://daily.bandcamp.com/2017/01/24/everything-is-terrific... [2] http://5chicago.com/technology/bandcamp-profitable/ http://5chicago.com/technology/bandcamp-profitable/
- kawsper 9y ago
  I am so pleased with Bandcamp, every time I buy music it is such a joy to see a link to Bandcamp.
  - josteink 9y ago
    I'm too very happy with Bandcamp, and it's usually the first place I check to see if an album I want is available, if it's not directly for sale on an artist's website. That said, music is extremely portable, so it's easy to buy from several online shops and combine it all in your own library later. Based on that I sometimes remind myself that, unlike streaming services, where you are forced to put all your eggs in one basket and can only have one source, with music sales there might be other options too. There's actually a free market out there! That's extremely rare on today's internet, and I want to support that. Therefore I consciously try to buy stuff from other sources too, like Ninjashop, 7 digital, Waste, etc. But it's just very easy to come back to bandcamp.
  - jstnn 9y ago
    For me as a producer is also a joy to sell my music through Bandcamp. The tools to release and monetize my content are far superior than Soundcloud, which in our label we use just to showcase singles without download option.
doublerebel 9y ago
Yes, SoundCloud (IMO wrongfully) saw streaming services cut their market share (I believe it was actually product decisions.). So to get paid end user subscribers they offered streaming fully released albums and downloading them to play later. This is completely at odds with securely streaming unreleased music, as a preview for the final album. They always have charged producers, and now are charging both sides for (in many cases) the same content. This shifted their product focus and shafted producers who didn't have a major label deal that could afford the streaming SoundCloud partnership deal. Basically giving the finger to the early community that made them popular. I would have focused on the producers and dissemination of their tracks that led to more and better discovery. I believe producers would pay a premium for that -- they already do with other forms of media delivery.
thirdsun 9y ago
As far as I know Bandcamp is doing better than ever - they are also a completely different service, not very similar to Soundcloud at all. At Bandcamp you buy and truly own your music. While they offer streaming of those purchases, I‘d surprised if the vast majority of Bandcamp users doesn’t maintain and prefer their local music collection, which Bandcamp probably has contributed to a lot. It‘s my impression that the Bandcamp userbase is very loyal and full of music enthusiasts - at. least I buy there weekly, about 5-10 releases.
pcsanwald 9y ago
I'm a musician who's planning on releasing an album through bandcamp, and I've been a fan of soundcloud since I discovered it. bandcamp has a very different business model from soundcloud. it's set up to cater to artists selling music, and they take a cut of any music sold through bandcamp. This is a valuable service and they charge a straightforward fee for providing it. the downside of this model is that it assumes people will buy music. Which, to be clear, they very much do today. Streaming is popular but there are still tons of people actually buying music. soundcloud's early business model was for artists to pay for more storage, or something, and in recent years, I'm honestly not sure what their business model is. So, not surprising that bandcamp is profitable and doing well and has apparently not raised tons of money yet gotten to profitability, and also not surprising that soundcloud, which has taken a lot of VC capital, is not going to be betting on a business model that seems to be going away (but in the meantime is presumably quite profitable).

cookiecaper 9y ago

File hosting is just not a profitable enterprise. This pattern should be familiar by now: gain prominence by giving away tons of stuff to draw in users, and then clamp down when the bill comes due, resulting in a hard pivot that alienates the users. The truth is that users are not loyal. If you are offering something for free, they will be happy to take it, and they will have no qualms about moving on when you stop giving them the free stuff that they came for. Selling eyeballs is a very tough business. People who want a realistic chance to make money should have plans besides "sell ads".

jonbarker 9y ago
Isn't facebook basically file hosting with a bunch of links?
- dredmorbius 9y ago
  Yes, though it's 1) the largest such service with 2) some very sticky features. (Not that I use it.) Realise that the flipside of such services is their real customers -- the adverts side. For online advertising, the two largest agencies claim over 60% of the market, and are named "Google" and "Facebook". Everyone else is an also-ran. Which for any ads purchaser means "a lot more work for a lot less reach".
- cookiecaper 9y ago
  Facebook is infrastructure. It provides the connections out to your personal network. Facebook's staying power comes from its ability to say "This is the best way to communicate with your personal network at any time". "File hosting" is just one subelement of that, because one of the things that you may want to share is a file. Couldn't the whole internet be generalized as "file hosting with a bunch of links"? A "file host" is a company whose primary purpose is for you to upload a file and give the link to someone else; they're a middleman that exists only because a more convenient/direct means of distribution to the intended network isn't available. This does not make the company nearly loud enough to establish its own identity/user base. Facebook has always been its own repository of people intelligence. It was never just an "upload your photos here". Such platforms, like Photobucket or Imgur, sometimes prosper for a while, until the communication channels that reach the intended audience directly offer something easier. (imgur is going down now as reddit introduced its own image host last year)
- jonbarker 9y ago
  Was actually just trying to create a counterpoint to the claim that file hosting services don't make money. Facebook is a hosting service for pictures and comments, and it makes money.
aphextron 9y ago
>File hosting is just not a profitable enterprise. Yep. There's simply no money in just "pushing bits" anymore. That business has been consolidated by people like Google and Amazon. You have to both provide a valuable service, as well as create a "network effect" around your product. Otherwise you're easily susceptible to being out competed.

jameskegel 9y ago

Bandcamp, Spotify, and Pandora are for the most part an afterthought to my social circle compared to SoundCloud. I'm genuinely surprised they aren't doing well; they have great engineers and have a fearless attitude that helped them reach a large audience quickly

conradfr 9y ago

Love using Bandcamp. Apparently great[1] and profitable since 2012[2]. [1] https://daily.bandcamp.com/2017/01/24/everything-is-terrific-the-bandcamp-2016-year-in-review/ https://daily.bandcamp.com/2017/01/24/everything-is-terrific... [2] http://5chicago.com/technology/bandcamp-profitable/ http://5chicago.com/technology/bandcamp-profitable/

kawsper 9y ago
I am so pleased with Bandcamp, every time I buy music it is such a joy to see a link to Bandcamp.
- josteink 9y ago
  I'm too very happy with Bandcamp, and it's usually the first place I check to see if an album I want is available, if it's not directly for sale on an artist's website. That said, music is extremely portable, so it's easy to buy from several online shops and combine it all in your own library later. Based on that I sometimes remind myself that, unlike streaming services, where you are forced to put all your eggs in one basket and can only have one source, with music sales there might be other options too. There's actually a free market out there! That's extremely rare on today's internet, and I want to support that. Therefore I consciously try to buy stuff from other sources too, like Ninjashop, 7 digital, Waste, etc. But it's just very easy to come back to bandcamp.
- jstnn 9y ago
  For me as a producer is also a joy to sell my music through Bandcamp. The tools to release and monetize my content are far superior than Soundcloud, which in our label we use just to showcase singles without download option.

doublerebel 9y ago

Yes, SoundCloud (IMO wrongfully) saw streaming services cut their market share (I believe it was actually product decisions.). So to get paid end user subscribers they offered streaming fully released albums and downloading them to play later. This is completely at odds with securely streaming unreleased music, as a preview for the final album. They always have charged producers, and now are charging both sides for (in many cases) the same content. This shifted their product focus and shafted producers who didn't have a major label deal that could afford the streaming SoundCloud partnership deal. Basically giving the finger to the early community that made them popular. I would have focused on the producers and dissemination of their tracks that led to more and better discovery. I believe producers would pay a premium for that -- they already do with other forms of media delivery.

thirdsun 9y ago

As far as I know Bandcamp is doing better than ever - they are also a completely different service, not very similar to Soundcloud at all. At Bandcamp you buy and truly own your music. While they offer streaming of those purchases, I‘d surprised if the vast majority of Bandcamp users doesn’t maintain and prefer their local music collection, which Bandcamp probably has contributed to a lot. It‘s my impression that the Bandcamp userbase is very loyal and full of music enthusiasts - at. least I buy there weekly, about 5-10 releases.

pcsanwald 9y ago

I'm a musician who's planning on releasing an album through bandcamp, and I've been a fan of soundcloud since I discovered it. bandcamp has a very different business model from soundcloud. it's set up to cater to artists selling music, and they take a cut of any music sold through bandcamp. This is a valuable service and they charge a straightforward fee for providing it. the downside of this model is that it assumes people will buy music. Which, to be clear, they very much do today. Streaming is popular but there are still tons of people actually buying music. soundcloud's early business model was for artists to pay for more storage, or something, and in recent years, I'm honestly not sure what their business model is. So, not surprising that bandcamp is profitable and doing well and has apparently not raised tons of money yet gotten to profitability, and also not surprising that soundcloud, which has taken a lot of VC capital, is not going to be betting on a business model that seems to be going away (but in the meantime is presumably quite profitable).