*They ran out of money: whatever happens to musicians will happen to everybody.
(...)
Can the internet’s record collection be saved? (((No.)))
After 10 years and raising well over $200 million, SoundCloud has failed to build a sustainable business off “the YouTube of music.” Trimming the fat hasn’t necessarily made it fit. If SoundCloud wants to survive, it may need to accept that it should sell to some more established company that could do better managing and monetizing it. YouTube grew into a content juggernaut, but it might never have made it that far without Google’s help. It would need to find as supportive a steward.
Otherwise, SoundCloud must get much more aggressive about identifying its differentiated value — independent musicians — and drop any business like Go+ where it can’t keep up. It would need to deepen its relationship with creators and offer more tools to get them paid, like the booming monthly subscription patronage platform Patreon. Unfortunately, SoundCloud PR tells me “There are currently no plans to make changes to our existing subscription offerings.”
The fate of the world’s biggest collection of bedroom remixes, garage recordings, living room podcasts, basement DJ sets and all other manner of home-made sound is at stake. The death of SoundCloud would be a sad blow to the independent musicians who are scraping by as it is....
(((I found a lot of stuff of interest on Soundcloud; a pity that I won't be able to keep it or share it. Probably there's some handy and illicit way to stream it and rip it – this has become the trendier form of piracy, after the decline of file-sharing – but that feels like salting the business-model wounds, somehow.)))
