
SoundCloud launches Go: a subscription service - radiusvector
http://www.wired.com/2016/03/soundclouds-new-venture-mixes-social-network-music-service/?mbid=social_twitter
======
dominotw
I used to use soundcloud all the time but switched to 'Discover weekely' on
Spotify, like the author of the article. Spotify hit it out of park with
Discover weekly.

One downside of spotify is still discoverability, discover weekly doesn't
introduce you to completely new kinds of music, it sticks to what you already
like. You are on you own to introduce randomness into spotify's discovery
algorithms.

I think Rdio had that right idea here. I was discovering much more new music
when I was with Rdio than with Spotify. Spotify leans heavily towards what is
popular.

~~~
Futurebot
Agree completely. Rdio did a much better job with music discovery, but they
were limited by selection. Soundcloud doesn't have typical discovery features,
but the ones they do have are quite good. Here's how I find good (relatively
unknown/esoteric) music there:

\- Follow good aggregator accounts. These repost new music regularly, which
appears in one's timeline.

\- Follow good regular accounts and play their "likes."

\- Go to a song's "related tracks" screen and play those

I find excellent music on a regular basis this way.

~~~
torbit
Thanks for the tip. I used rdio, currently spotify, and pandora. My method in
finding songs was going to Pandora and adding songs I loved from their to
spotify. Pandora seems to be great at finding similar sounding songs to what I
request.

The whole finding people to follow is what is the problem for me. It takes
time finding accounts to follow. Friends dont have similar taste in music.
Apple has the right idea in picking songs/artist you like before you get to
start the service so you get something you like in your feed.

someone make an app to connect users to awesome playlists based on
songs/genre/and more

~~~
Futurebot
The initial bootstrap period is definitely a missing piece that Soundcloud
could and should build.

"DiscoverTracks" is a service to help with part of the process (it looks at
your likes and plays you related tracks based on the likes of friends and
friends of friends I believe.) Doesn't solve the entire issue, but it's handy:
[https://www.discovertracks.com/](https://www.discovertracks.com/)

------
_jomo
SoundCloud Go is not available in Germany. It's kind of ironic given it's a
Berlin, Germany based company.

I wonder if this is due to GEMA preventing them from offering Go for an
acceptable price. Unfortunately many services (including YouTube) have this
problem.

~~~
pjmlp
I really hate them, specially the taxes even on school songs.

------
6stringmerc
I'm trying to find out if there's any announcement by SoundCloud about paying
non-RIAA affiliated independents. Yeah yeah I'm pretty sure it's a _Nope_ but
it'd be nice to look into. At least Spotify pays. And Apple pays. And Google
pays. And Deezr pays. And Tidal pays...

Can we please link to an article that doesn't have an egregious pop-up that
blocks my screen every two paragraphs? This isn't an exclusive article or
subject. Even the AP has a write-up:
[http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/soundcloud-
exp...](http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/soundcloud-expands-
mainstream-paid-streaming-plan-37999375)

------
JonFish85
Taking on Spotify seems like an odd choice to me. To me it would seem that
Spotify has a huge fight ahead of it, even though it has raised well over a
billion dollars at this point. They're fighting against the platforms that
already exist: Apple Music & Google Play. Apple Music offers basically the
same thing except with tighter integration with their hardware (and iTunes for
buying the songs that artists don't allow to be streamed), as does Google
Play.

It seems to me that Spotify is fighting an uphill battle saddled with an
enormous valuation ($10b-ish I believe?); SoundCloud really wants to fight
against them for whoever is left after Google & Apple? And, through all of
this, Spotify & SoundCloud are paying a huge chunk of their mobile revenue
directly to their competitors (Apple/Google stores). It doesn't sound like a
space that I want to be in!

~~~
tedmiston
> And, through all of this, Spotify & SoundCloud are paying a huge chunk of
> their mobile revenue directly to their competitors (Apple/Google stores).

I'm not so sure they are. By charging a higher price ($12.99 in app vs. $9.99
on web), I wonder if people really are paying the higher price just for
convenience. I'm definitely not.

Tidal is currently doing the same with their pricing structure.

~~~
pmilla1606
The price difference between in-app (ios) vs. web is due to Apple's 30% fee
for in-app purchase.

[http://www.theverge.com/2015/7/8/8913105/spotify-apple-
app-s...](http://www.theverge.com/2015/7/8/8913105/spotify-apple-app-store-
email)

------
k-mcgrady
>> "Eventually, everyone from DJs to podcasters will be able to monetize the
same way, though the system is invite-only for now."

I'm not holding my breath. Overtime SoundCloud releases something cool it's
only available to people they invite and never seems to become available to
everyone.

On top of that I just tried to signup for Go - not available in my country
(UK) so I'm guessing, as usual, US only. Pretty sucky for a company based in
Germany.

~~~
6stringmerc
Thanks for pointing that out. Yeah it seems like Dubset and Apple almost
forced SoundCloud's hand - I'm already signed up to that collaborative service
(Mixbank) and it looks very, very well put together. SoundCloud's reputation
hasn't been the greatest lately from the user/producer experience so I'm with
you that their 'open-ness' is suspect.

~~~
snickmy
I doubt Apple forced anything. Soundcloud has been working on this for
literally 18 months. the only thing holding on was the Sony deal.

Dubset is doing a great job product wise. Really well done, unfortunately they
coverage of licensing is really limited. They sort of jumped ahead and sold
the platform before closing at least 50% of the deals (see for instance
completely absence of the Merlin catalog).

Soundcloud has been always open, but struggled a lot in having a communication
channel with their users. Seams getting better lately. Finger crossed!

~~~
6stringmerc
Fair counter and I was being a bit more tongue in cheek, sorry about that if
it came off as sort of ignorant. I agree these deals are massive to construct,
and the back-end has to be really interesting from a tech / rights standpoint.
It has been, without a doubt, one of the biggest riddles for the instiutional
players (re: rights & revenue). Again, sort of trying to be joking about the
subject, but I bet it's a lot easier for SoundCloud to get 100% cooperation
with major labels/societies by catering exclusively to them, and basically
ignoring any potential compensation for the independent content creators
(however minor it might be) - yeah I'm kind of slighting Merlin for only
capturing its market, because I think there's probably a single digit
percentage of content creators unaffiliated...not much, I know...

It just kind of feels bitter, like SoundCloud built their honest business on
original content (not mashups), and then really is pivoting to the major
monied players and hand-waving off the rest. If it's true I can understand it
business wise, I can. I just...well, don't particularly like it on a personal
level.

~~~
snickmy
I think, and I hope there is going to be a room for compromise there.

If they'll manage to tune their recommendation and discovery system in the
right direction, they will be an appealing platform for both indies and
majors.

Indies can finally get a prime time exposure within the major content. If you
sound like taylor swift, and your lyrics are about breaking up with every
possible person on earth, I think you should deserve a spot in an automatic
generated 'San Valentine's day Single' along with her.

Majors can have a far better social layer that as it is today no one else has
been able to create (Apple Ping anyone?). Soundcloud can offer that millennial
generation engagement in a pure music context that so far has been lacking
everywhere else. And Majors love millennials :)

I'm not saying it's an easy position to be in, and also, I wasn't myself that
faithful about all this would have played out for SoundCloud, but to be
honest, is an exciting time for the music industry.

~~~
6stringmerc
Very well stated and I like the perspective you've put forward. Rational and,
it seems, also quite healthy for the major stakeholders. Breaking 'new'
artists is a big deal, and profitable in the long run - especially if there's
SoundCloud analytics behind the scenes pointing to new targets. Without a
doubt I agree the majors have been successful in protecting their role as
curators of taste in their own way; they've always been in a pretty strong
position. Totally with you that this is a great time to be watching the tech
and distribution and rights discussions taking place in music.

------
owenwil
While I like SoundCloud a lot, what the hell have they been up to for the last
few years? From where I'm sitting Spotify, Apple Music and many more out-
innovated them and SoundCloud did... well, nothing.

~~~
snickmy
I'm sorry but I need to disagree.

The problem that SoundCloud is trying to solve has nowhere else being address.
Yes, spotify and Apple Music are growing at a fast pace, but they don't
necessarily play in the same landscape of SoundCloud.

Content is what differentiate SoundCloud from any of its competitors. If you
want exclusive content, early gems or just unreleased reworks, soundcloud is
the place to go. Solving this on the legal prospective is a huge pain. That is
what Soundscloud has been doing for the last ever. Allowing you to enjoy
Rihanna new song as well as 'Dj in his bedroom remix of Rihanna new song'. Try
to find that on Spotify or Apple Music.

Now that they've close all the deals they needed in place, you'll see how fast
the product will grow.

~~~
Artistry121
I think YouTube Red is their largest competition here and has a comparable
remix catalog, a music video catalog and a larger live collection.

~~~
snickmy
I completely agree with you. Although Video vs Audio content can be a
differentiation, especially in the growing market where there is a shortage of
data.

------
kdamken
I'm not sure I see what this is really offering customers. It seems like just
another paywell for creators to put their content behind. While that's good
for them, as a consumer I don't really have much motivation to sign up for
another streaming service when I already pay for Spotify.

If an artist is on Spotify, great, I'll listen to their songs a bunch and
they'll make a little money off of me. If it's a group I haven't heard much of
before and they're good, I'll probably get more into them and end up seeing
them when they tour in my area.

If they put themselves exclusively behind another service ( _cough_ Kanye West
_cough_ Tidal), I'll be forced to find other ways to listen to the album,
which will likely be less than profitable for the artist.

~~~
radiusvector
Hey there - It's a huge catalog of tracks which contains all content from both
emerging and established creators. The full details of which can be found on
[https://blog.soundcloud.com/](https://blog.soundcloud.com/)

~~~
kdamken
I read the article - the pros seems to be:

\- Ad free music \- Listen offline \- More tracks from established creators

The first two are a given with any streaming service. My point was their
catalog isn't enough to make me switch over.

As an artist, unless you're getting some kind of crazy deal to just be on one
of the services, your best bet is to be on every one out there.

~~~
k-mcgrady
Where in the article does it say you have be exclusively on this platform? The
word is exclusive is mentioned twice and both times in relation to Tidal.

~~~
kdamken
That's the only thing that really separates these services. They all have
similar catalogs and features for the most part.

The issue I have is with the exclusivity deals that come up as part of them
trying to compete with each other. It annoying for the customer, and ends up
with less money for the artist as most people will inevitably just go torrent
their work if it's not on the one streaming service they're using.

------
sarreph
I was really hoping that they wouldn't have to pivot into competing with
Spotify (somewhat indirectly, although that is TBD depending on what deals
they've signed).

Here's hoping that the mention of an _indie_ library hints towards a more
interesting slant on what exactly subscribers get access to. For example, it
would be cool if there was a way to monetise un-signed or newly-signed artists
rather than mainstream Spotify territory.

~~~
cageface
Bandcamp covers that territory pretty well now.

~~~
6stringmerc
Honestly I don't see Bandcamp as really doing more than filling a niche for
artists who refuse to be on Spotify and/or don't know how to get into the
'major' digital outlets like Spotify, iTunes, Google, etc. It's a different
ecosystem with all the same 'quality' issues as SoundCloud but not the same
social interaction type stuff. I'm not trying to knock it, but I don't see it
as a major player outside of a really indie circle (re: critics, obsessives)
and not quite the casual listener(s).

------
kogepathic
This would explain why they have removed the local cache option in their
Android app.

In previous versions, you could select how much content to cache locally on
the device, up to 100%. This meant if you listened to a song once, you could
listen to it again offline.

From using their app now, and the website (non-mobile) it seems they have
removed all caching completely.

Anyway, it's absolutely trivial to download the raw songs (MP3) from
SoundCloud using Developer Tools in your favourite browser. It's not the
highest quality, but since SoundCloud is 90% user contributed tracks, the
original quality is often questionable anyway.

I see no added value from this service. Just download the songs as MP3 files
and listen to them, offline and ad free!

~~~
johnyfav
This is one of the reasons I don't like the iOS app. There was never any
caching. On the commute to work (where I listen to the most music) I could
listen to the same track as long as I had net connection which isn't always
the case.

I feel that they have taken a step back on their apps recently.

~~~
lavezzi
No, there used to be caching before they switched to the redesigned iOS app.

------
alistproducer2
Not that I'm opposed to Soundcloud charging money, but I've been concerned
with what happens to all that cool music if/when the business model fails.

I've been dreaming up a way to use ipfs, ethereum, and other distributed tech
to create a user-owned, cryptocurrency sustained soundcloud that would
persist. for anyone interested, I've got a rough use case disagram here
[https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4gkEhfnwSVBZDE5TGtSUFlmYWc...](https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4gkEhfnwSVBZDE5TGtSUFlmYWc/view?usp=sharing)

------
oldmanhorton
This would be appealing if the Soundcloud apps (including web) werent so
atrocious. Navigating through your collection on Android is a mess, and the
webapp shows as few as 2 tracks on a full laptop screen (while eating up
gigabytes of RAM after only casual listening). I still love how the webapp
"shuffle" mode will only shuffle through the songs already loaded by the
client, so its just a mix of your most recent 25 or 50 songs.

~~~
joshstrange
The iOS app (last I used it, 1-2 months ago) was trash as well. Constant
issues with buffering, no offline, crashing all the time. I use Mixcloud
exclusively now and while it doesn't have offline either it works 1000x better
and has more of what I really want.

------
cableshaft
"If you’re an iOS user, it’ll cost more, with the company charging $12.99 for
signups to account for Apple’s mandatory 30 percent cut."

I'd be a little surprised if Apple will allow them to do this. It's kind of
like credit card companies requiring stores to charge the same price
regardless of if you use the credit card (which has fees) instead of cash
(which doesn't). Charging different prices is a negative signal for Apple's
ecosystem ("Why can I get this cheaper if I have an Android phone? Maybe I
want an Android phone instead next time....")

While I might argue that the negative signal shoooould exist, I'm surprised
Apple doesn't have it in its terms that you can't do that if you want your app
on the Apple App Store.

Also, could we please amend the title? It's not a flat $12.99 a month for
everyone, and it doesn't even match the headline on the actual article.

~~~
Bulk70
Spotify have the exact same pricing model/discrepancy
[http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/07/08/spotify-is-
actively...](http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/07/08/spotify-is-actively-
encouraging-ios-users-to-stop-paying-for-streaming-via-itunes/)

~~~
cableshaft
Huh. I guess since I signed up for it through their website so it was always
$10/month for me, so I didn't notice.

But see, I was an iOS user paying $10/month for Spotify (because I paid on the
web). Does Soundcloud offer this, or is it truly every iOS user has to pay
through Apple for their subscription to Soundcloud Go, and thus have no choice
but to pay more? It seems like it's the latter by the wording of their copy.

------
jupp0r
The actual offering left aside, the naming is quite unfortunate.

~~~
k-mcgrady
>> "The actual offering left aside, the naming is quite unfortunate."

It seems good to me. One of the major features is offline listening to you can
now listen 'on the go'. Am I missing something?

~~~
geostyx
HBO Go Go (golang) Go (game)

~~~
k-mcgrady
HBO Go is the only real clash there (very few people are going to confuse an
offering by a well known music site with a programming language or board
game). I don't see HBO ever making Go available outside the US so it probably
won't be a real issue for many people.

~~~
x1798DE
I think the bigger problem with these generic names is that they are hard to
search for and crowd the search space. Go is a common enough word that you'll
need to search for `"SoundCloud Go"`, since `SoundCloud Go` will bring up a
bunch of unrelated stuff about SoundCloud, e.g. "go to your SoundCloud account
panel and..." But using quotes will miss sentences like, "SoundCloud has
released a new service, Go."

~~~
roywiggins
Google seems to understand it perfectly.

[https://www.google.com/search?q=SoundCloud+Go](https://www.google.com/search?q=SoundCloud+Go)

~~~
danso
Probably as a result of Google's use of ngrams for searching. It also seems
likely that users instinctively (or rather, by years of experience from using
Google) know to search for the proper noun rather than just "go"
alone...basing that on my own anecdotal evidence of always searching for "hbo
now" instead of just "now"

------
bborud
If soundcloud has mended their ways with regard to allowing takedowns etc by
third parties, this hasn't really been communicated all that well.

I used to be a paying customer, but I ditched the service after they allowed
Universal to harass their users. That's a while ago though, and I haven't been
paying much attention to Soundcloud since.

Have they shaped up or should I still avoid them?

~~~
k-mcgrady
>> "If soundcloud has mended their ways with regard to allowing takedowns etc
by third parties, this hasn't really been communicated all that well."

I had my first take down a few months ago after using the service since it
launched. I got 1 strike. A few weeks ago I had another take down but there
was no 'strike' mention this time. I'm not sure if this was because Universal
requested the first takedown and the second one was automatically caught by
SoundCloud's system but it may be that when the second one occurred these
deals were finalised so they've stopped the '3 strikes' nonsense.

------
alistproducer2
Not that I'm opposed to Soundcloud charging money, but I've been concerned
with what happens to all that cool music if/when the business model fails.

I've been dreaming up a way to use ipfs, ethereum, and other distributed tech
to create a user-owned, cryptocurrency sustained soundcloud that would
persist.

for anyone interested, I've got a rough use case disagram here
[https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4gkEhfnwSVBZDE5TGtSUFlmYWc...](https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4gkEhfnwSVBZDE5TGtSUFlmYWc/view?usp=sharing)

------
Artistry121
Their competitive advantage will be their unique catalog and social features
but Google with YouTube Red already provides a similar catalog and experience.
Most remixes I find on Soundcloud I've also been able to find on YouTube and
YouTube has more live clips in my experience. Either the brand value of
soundcloud is high, it can attract artists to post exclusives on its site or
the second-by-second social feature is an important deal or they will have
difficulty competing with Google Play/YouTube Red and the others.

------
gypsy_boots
What will be hard for many consumers and artists is that Soundcloud has so
many DJ's and/or podcasters who've been putting out something like a weekly
mixtape or podcast for years. Now let's say all of the sudden they now put it
behind the paywall. Consumers who have gotten used to getting this free
content for years will now be irked. I'm afraid people already equate
Soundcloud with great free content, so transitioning to anything else will be
difficult.

------
hnexamazon
I am a long-time user of Soundcloud that has recently stepped back from the
service. As an EDM enthusiast, the service is the best place for finding up-
and-coming talent and great remixes that you can't find anywhere else. The
killer feature is the personal stream. Once you've started following a large
enough pool of artists and labels, there is no better mechanism for wading
through the pool of mediocrity to search out those rare gems.

Unfortunately, Soundcloud's method for organizing your content really breaks
down under heavy use. I have over 1000 songs liked, and scrolling through the
like list, dynamically fetching ten songs at a time, is a huge pain. Playlist
creation and maintenance is even more cumbersome and limited than Spotify,
which is saying something.

Worst of all, the usefulness of the stream, arguably Soundcloud's most unique
and valuable listener-facing feature, really breaks down the longer you're
using the service. Most heavy users I know end up following over a few hundred
artists/labels/channels, accumulated over years of use, and the signal-to-
noise ratio becomes unbearable. The sad thing is that the breakdown is purely
a UX problem. The webapp is an infinite-scroll nightmare: forcing you to start
at the top of the stream every time and fetch tracks 10 at a time. It doesn't
clean up after itself, so after an hour of slowly chipping away through your
feed, the browser gets so slow and unresponsive on my top-spec Macbook Pro
that I often give up and don't bother trying to listen to new tracks that have
been posted to my feed over 18 hours ago. Of course, as I now check Soundcloud
less and less frequently, that means I am missing a ton of content.

On top of that, due to Soundcloud's reputation as solely a promotional tool
within the artist community, you end up wading through a ton of 1 - 2 minute
previews and other low-quality throwaways, and songs that you like can
disappear from the service at any time, without notice. You cannot build a
stable music library on top of the service. In fact, I used to have a process
where I'd look for new songs on Soundcloud, and if I found something good,
look it up on Spotify and save it within my Spotify collection, because I knew
it wouldn't just disappear on me after a few months. Once Spotify upped their
discovery game and the available EDM content grew, I removed Soundcloud from
the process entirely.

Soundcloud used to be the best game in town for music discovery, especially
EDM, but they let that slip over the last few years of struggling to monetize
and Spotify's constant progression has now really chipped away that advantage.
I've signed up for this GO service, but I highly doubt I'll keep it past the
30 day free trial. $10 a month for offline download and removing ads? As far
as I can tell, my stream is the same mess as it was before, and they don't
even distinguish between GO-exclusive and free tracks. I don't see anywhere
where I can find GO-exclusive tracks within the app at all, actually.

New music discovery is hard and the big players (Spotify, Apple Music, Google
Play) still haven't fully cracked it, at least for specific-niche enthusiasts
like myself. When the Soundcloud stream is working well, it is the best
interface I've used for finding new music I like, but the complete lack of
focus and neglect on that front from this initiative means that I probably
won't be coming back.

~~~
finnh
Great analysis of Soundcloud's problems. I love it for all the same reasons
(something like 90% of the new music I've found over the past 4 years is via
soundcloud), but any ability to filter/manage/sort/search your favorites or
your stream is basically missing.

And, as you say, it's purely a UX problem.

Also the fact that they don't have limited permission tokens is insane. A lot
of artists have a "free download for followers" policy, but the integrations
that enforce that require 100% complete access to your account. As in, sign me
up to follow anyone, post anything, etc. Just to verify that I'm following
you.

~~~
hnexamazon
I actually spent the last two years writing a music app that integrated with
the Soundcloud API to provide the bulk of the music content. To call their iOS
SDK "neglected" is an understatement, but what I found worse was the opaque
failure modes and restricted access provided by the official REST API.

For example, Soundcloud provides artists with a switch to allow/forbid third-
party clients using their API to access the audio streams of the songs they
post. This restriction, naturally, doesn't affect the official Soundcloud
apps. While it makes my app a second-class citizen for accessing Soundcloud
content, I understand the motivation and reasoning for the feature.

However, how does the Soundcloud API surface these restrictions? Through one
of the dozens of flags it attaches to the json response it returns when you
query for a track's metadata? Ha, no, all the various "track downloadable" and
"streamable" flags are all set to true. Instead, it just returns a 404 when
you try to fetch the data from the track URL...except when it started
returning 401 instead (an admittedly more appropriate return code)...until it
started returning 404 again.

So as a developer, my only avenue for not surfacing non-playable tracks within
my client was to attempt to download each track, catch any 4xx responses,
ASSUME the reason is due to permissions rather than any other potential causes
for 4xx errors, and hide the content within the app.

I can understand Soundcloud's lack of enthusiasm for providing decent 3rd-
party integrations, but if your external API is this much of a mess, I'd hate
to see what you vend internally. The fact their permissions token provides
zero granularity is not surprising to me at all.

~~~
finnh
That is tragic. I'm such a huge fan of SoundCloud - I even pay for a pro
account, even though I don't post that much audio, just to give them $$ - but
... sigh. These are not good problems.

And here I thought their Roshi library looked pretty good. Maybe the talent is
all on the backend there.

------
staticelf
How much Spotify cost in the states? As a Swede it costs 99kr which is more
than $9. I use Groove and that costs $9 which translates to about 79kr or
something like that.

It's 20% cheaper for a little less content and a not as good client. The
lesser price alone makes the service worth it.

~~~
coldtea
So, we're talking 20% cheaper for less content and worse client?

How does that make the service "worth it"?

It sounds like subpar crap in every way but price, and even at that it's
nothing to write home about either (a measly $2.5 savings).

If one can afford $9/month, I don't see how $11.5 month are prohibiting for a
better experience and more content.

~~~
staticelf
Well, it's not super bad and the content is almost as good. It's not 20%
worse.

The big thing for me is that Groove works on Xbox, which I have and listen to,
otherwise I used to be a Tidal customer. But I know there is a Tidal UWP app
coming, then I will switch back.

------
bertiewhykovich
The cognitive load of differentiating between everything named "Go" in the
tech ecosystem is giving me a migraine.

------
f_allwein
why doesn't any music service come up with a less expensive price plan? I
would like to try one, but am pretty sure I would not use it so much as to
justify paying 10$ (or £) per month. How about a less expensive plan with
limited features (e.g. only n hours of music per month)?

~~~
JoshGlazebrook
I honestly don't see how the $10 price point can be considered anything but
affordable. When individual songs are over $1 each on iTunes and other digital
music stores, and one album bought digitally or physically is more than a
single month of renting 30+ million songs for a month, the thought of
considering $10 to be expensive seems crazy to me.

I still have my student discount with Spotify so I only pay $5+tax, but even
when I lose the discount, $10 is not expensive to me. Especially for what I
get.

------
toastking
$12 a month seems a little steep. Especially when compared to Apple Music and
Spotify.

~~~
aiw1nters
it's $9.99 not $12.

125m tracks vs 30m (of Spotify) + offline listening (same with Spotify) + no
ads makes it a killer proposition!

~~~
ericzawo
125m tracks made mostly by guys dinking around with Ableton in their bedroom
vs 30m tracks from artists you might actually have heard of. Whatever the
proposition in pure numbers is doesn't matter when your experience will suck.

~~~
aiw1nters
but looks like SoundCloud will have all the Spotify tracks, so still it's a
win for them. Plus there are many great mixtapes, podcasts and indie artists
there!

------
kevando
I regularly avoid soundcloud because I dont want to use my data, so I am very
excited about this offline feature

