4 ms·

In fact Vimeo's pricing and core audience (largely-independent semi-pro uploaders of high-quality media content for promotional purposes) is identical to SoundC

• pier25 9y ago
  > is identical to SoundCloud's I haven't seen any hard numbers, but from my subjective experience and anecdotal data I'd say Soundcloud is closer to Youtube than Vimeo for a number of reasons. Vimeo isn't focused on the social aspect. It's a platform for pros to share their content in hi quality which is the only reason these pros aren't using Youtube in the first place. Soundcloud doesn't pretend to be a service for pros. Otherwise why stream at 128kpbs and offer such meager and ridiculously priced plans? Also no pro tools for distribution or even selling music like Bandcamp does. Soundcloud is focused on the community and social experience much like Youtube or even IMGUR. This is why I believe it hasn't been able to monetize its efforts. Either Soundcloud starts monetizing with ads or it becomes a real platform for pros.
  • btown 9y ago
    Well, 128kbps sounds just fine on Beats headphones! /s (I feel dirty just for typing the above.) The streaming at 128kbps IMO has always been an anti-piracy measure; given that those previews are inevitably going to be scraped, make them just teasers rather than the real thing, and encourage purchase (or the cancer that is "Repost and Follow this random irrelevant promotion network to download" ... which is another problem SoundCloud needs to solve). It begs the question, though - with such a large engineering staff, why has SoundCloud always linked externally for "Buy" links rather than running its own store? It could capture a lot more of the value chain and lower friction-to-purchase for indie musicians. Perhaps the reason was to not be competitive with its initiatives to get record labels (who likely prefer to drive sales through existing platforms for quixotic reasons) on board for SoundCloud Go. But perhaps with new leadership and recalibration, this could actually happen. RIP Bandcamp though... or maybe they just acquire them!
    • pier25 9y ago
      > The streaming at 128kbps IMO has always been an anti-piracy measure; given that those previews are inevitably going to be scraped I've never thought about the problem but it should be solvable. If you only stream hi quality to logged users you can track their behaviour.
      • tomc1985 9y ago
        We will always be able to destroy whatever pathetic little protections are put into place. As someone who produces music and uploads it to soundcloud, and has done so for 10+ years, 128kbps is a good limit. If they want higher quality they can ask me or hear it when I play out. Also, IIRC, there is a 'allow high-quality streaming for logged in users' checkbox in the upload editor.
        • pier25 9y ago
          > If they want higher quality they can ask me or hear it when I play out. But that would defeat the purpose of streaming services: convenience. > IIRC, there is a 'allow high-quality streaming for logged in users' checkbox in the upload editor Maybe for pro users. I just uploaded a file and didn't see that option.
          • tomc1985 9y ago
            > But that would defeat the purpose of streaming services: convenience. Many of us oppose this level of convenience as it cheapens our art. I'm happy to hand out mp3s or even allow them to be downloadable, if someone wants them. And it looks like HQ streaming disappeared as a feature, just like communities. Unless it's still on pro, but I wouldn't know since at some point they converted my pro account to a free one.
            • bigbugbag 9y ago
              Why would hand out audio files in a format that has been obsolete for a few decades ? Give me flac or any other lossless format that I can convert to flac.
• erdle 9y ago
  did Vimeo's core crowd also leave the platform?