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:<p>Create a frictionless way for me to send a few dollars to artists hosting music on your platform, and you take a cut.<p>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.
>"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"<p>After a big round of layoffs couldn't that message have been a little bit more nuanced?<p>Also if there is new CEO and COO coming on board what will this individual be doing?<p>Honestly this guy seems a little tone deaf.
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.
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.<p>However, Soundcloud serves more purposes. I don't think that works for the <i>rest</i> 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.