As a heavy EDM listener, Soundcloud is an amazing resource. Unfortunately, I see a variety of problems with the platform.<p>* The company was founded eight years ago but only added subscriptions to the artist side two years ago (I think?) and to the listener side in the last three months. Ads were added to the listener side a year ago, with no option to subscribe to remove them until the last few months. I basically stopped listening to Monstercat given how pervasive the ads were (every two tracks when skipping after a few seconds? Come on...)<p>* No way to buy music from them directly. Here's a recent release from Pegboard Nerds: <a href="https://soundcloud.com/monstercat/sets/pegboard-nerds-heartbit-remixes" rel="nofollow">https://soundcloud.com/monstercat/sets/pegboard-nerds-heartb...</a> . First five lines on the description: buy on iTunes, Bandcamp, Beatport, watch on Youtube, listen on Spotify. Not being able to sell music and have an online library of purchases seems like a lost opportunity.<p>* Speaking of libraries, you can like or repost songs. Beware though - if an artist removes a song or makes it private, it'll be gone from your lists. And I mean GONE - there's no record it existed, no track name, no artist, nothing. I only found out because I'm familiar enough with my likes that I noticed songs weren't playing in the right sequence. This is extraordinarily frustrating - at least if I bookmark music on Youtube, the artist and track name are in the bookmark, even if the video gets removed, making it possible to find/purchase elsewhere. Until a day arrives where I don't have to add the title of every track I like to a local text file, there's no way I'd sign up for their listener side subscription.<p>I've felt like Soundcloud could become a tremendous force in the music scene if they did things right - a one-stop shop for everything; uploading, sharing, listening, purchasing, collecting. Doesn't seem like they're pulling it off though.
Serial reposters have killed my soundcloud stream. Even artists I like, I offen do not like their taste. Discoverability is also a major problem. Lack of search filters, and arbitrary sorting of results in particular. Hashtag spamming and fake playlist naming to try and pump up play counts are rife.<p>Don't get me started on the mobile app..<p>I'd love to see some kind of subreddit like channels built into the platform which could encourage discussion and interaction - between artists especially .. There's so much good random music out there on the platform, but it just feels lost to the ether sometimes. To be honest, the platform which did this best while it lasted was MySpace artist pages.<p>Edit:<p>There's so much more they could be doing to become a place for artists. Special curated playlists - pay trendsetters / djs / weirdos to create awesome playlists out of the current content. Something I can set and listen to, look forward to updates on. The fact that Youtube is a better radio than Soundcloud is depressing to me.<p>Also, something like the RBMA[1] could easily boost the sense of community and respect for the platform. At the moment it just feels like.. plumbing. No love whatsoever. The official soundcloud blog[2] is so sterile and detached from the music they host. If I was them I'd be going <i>insane</i> over Desiigner's Panda[3] becoming No. 1 on Billboard [4] after having such a meteoric rise within the platform - feels like Solja Boy - Crank Dat moment for Soundcloud, yet there's pretty much nothing officially acknowledging it.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.redbullmusicacademy.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.redbullmusicacademy.com/</a><p>[2] <a href="https://blog.soundcloud.com/" rel="nofollow">https://blog.soundcloud.com/</a><p>[3] <a href="https://soundcloud.com/lifeofdesiigner/desiigner-panda" rel="nofollow">https://soundcloud.com/lifeofdesiigner/desiigner-panda</a><p>[4] <a href="http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/7341870/desiigner-panda-billboard-hot-100-number-1" rel="nofollow">http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/7341870...</a>
I'm so sick of all these businesses starting out humble and bespoke and then suddenly chasing growth and trying to take over the world.<p>Soundcloud is a tool for artists to host their music with a minimum amount of hassle. It's also a tool for fans to discover said artists. But it should be nothing more than this. There are other competitors that have already taken over other aspects of the music space, and own it completely -- but nobody owns artists'-hosting-their-music like Soundcloud.<p>It was the beginning of the end when they were bought by ABC or whoever-it-is. I wish there was some way for a business' customers to block acquisitions, maybe we'd fewer entrepreneurs with reckless exit strategies messing with the good things in life.
Soundcloud is a terrible mobile app and a slightly better website. I love that I can access vast troves of undiscovered house music - but you couldn't design a worse UI if you tried.<p>Soundcloud is lame now that the ads have come. Listening to a taco bell ad come on in the middle of my favorite playlist really kils the vibe.
New artists often just want people to hear their music, so they can build a following.<p>There are millions of people who want to sift through new music to find the next gem.<p>How can it be so hard to build a platform where these kinds of demand and supply meet?<p>There is a separate, market where established artists want to monetise mainstream listeners, and I can see that's what iTunes etc provide.<p>Maybe I'm overestimating the size of the 'sifting' market, because I'm one of those people?
It's interesting for me as a long-term Soundcloud user to hear a predominance of listeners here, when my experience of the site is that it focusses on producers and performers.<p>Sure, once in a while someone with a YouTube mindset uploads an album that they clearly didn't write, or an indie label learning about PR reposts their own back catalogue, but not that often. Mostly, artists upload tracks they wrote or are working on, and people repost a curated taste of what they are inspired by.<p>That's what I found about six years ago and my community on there have helped to keep me publishing music occasionally - not just writing bits and pieces but actually finishing music and hitting upload.<p>I think I'm fairly central for Soundcloud's target audience. You'll find download links on my tracks (full quality) and no Beatport, iTunes or Bandcamp links, because it's something I do for fun, not profit. I've never reached my upload limit because I'm not exactly prolific - or because the limit is generous.<p>The service has value to me, but I simply don't need anything that going pro offers.
People are very particular about their music. Doesn't it make sense that a service built for niche genres doesn't have broad appeal? I fucking love soundcloud and they nailed their product years ago, so I'm really excited to see what deals they've been cooking up the past year or so.<p>I bought Soundcloud Go the day it was available.
I used to love Soundcloud, but with growth and licensing concerns, mixes and remixes/edits started going missing. Then they deleted the Balearic Social account.<p>A lot of the better balearic types are posting at hearthis.at now, but the website is pretty rough, and their android app is terrible. Mixcloud seems a better choice.