from Hacker News

SoundCloud is here to stay

by techthumb on 8/11/17, 4:00 PM with 28 comments

  • by strict9 on 8/11/17, 4:40 PM

    SoundCloud, if you want to make money off of me, a devoted listener and user of the platform for 7 or 8 years, it is really easy:

    Create a frictionless way for me to send a few dollars to artists hosting music on your platform, and you take a cut.

    I don't want to pay $10 or $20 every month that gets dispersed into the ether. I want to directly thank the DJs and creators that enable me to be productive during the day and relax at night, a few dollars at a time.

  • by bogomipz on 8/11/17, 4:38 PM

    >"I’m happy to announce that together with investors The Raine Group and Temasek we’ve just wrapped up the largest financing round in the history of SoundCloud"

    After a big round of layoffs couldn't that message have been a little bit more nuanced?

    Also if there is new CEO and COO coming on board what will this individual be doing?

    Honestly this guy seems a little tone deaf.

  • by et-al on 8/11/17, 4:08 PM

    Is the music here to stay? The memo doesn't explicitly say, and I think that's main concern of most users.

  • by paulcole on 8/11/17, 5:02 PM

    6 months from now, "What an incredible journey..."

  • by whitepoplar on 8/11/17, 5:09 PM

    Business model: Unlimited free streaming with ads. Every artist has a "become a patron" button on their profile. Once you pledge over $10/month in aggregate, ads are removed. Soundcloud takes a 30% cut, like Apple does in the App Store. VIP patrons ($$$) get special perks as outlined by artists.

  • by ChrisArchitect on 8/11/17, 5:50 PM

    subscribing to labels or artists works for a small amount, Bandcamp does this. I pay an amount to select few of my fave labels that are doing it, and I get unlimited streaming and downloads of new releases It's great.

    However, Soundcloud serves more purposes. I don't think that works for the rest of the music out there I want to listen to. I mean there are tons of other podcasts, clips, etc that I want to listen to regularly and am not going to pay hundreds of dollars for. SoundCloud's rise to popularity is very much likely because it is a storehouse for audio, the internet needs easy to use and access repositories like this and since no one else was doing it at time, SC did well.

  • by geekrax on 8/11/17, 4:10 PM

    I was holding off on integrating Soundcloud API. I guess there's no excuse now.

  • by jtmarmon on 8/11/17, 4:15 PM

    A little self congratulatory no?