Hacker News Reader

Comment by pier25 | Hacker News Reader

> is identical to SoundCloud's

I haven't seen any hard numbers, but from my subjective experience and anecdotal data I'd say Soundcloud is closer to Youtube than Vimeo for a number of reasons.

Vimeo isn't focused on the social aspect. It's a platform for pros to share their content in hi quality which is the only reason these pros aren't using Youtube in the first place.

Soundcloud doesn't pretend to be a service for pros. Otherwise why stream at 128kpbs and offer such meager and ridiculously priced plans? Also no pro tools for distribution or even selling music like Bandcamp does.

Soundcloud is focused on the community and social experience much like Youtube or even IMGUR. This is why I believe it hasn't been able to monetize its efforts.

Either Soundcloud starts monetizing with ads or it becomes a real platform for pros.

View on HN

Well, 128kbps sounds just fine on Beats headphones!

/s (I feel dirty just for typing the above.)

The streaming at 128kbps IMO has always been an anti-piracy measure; given that those previews are inevitably going to be scraped, make them just teasers rather than the real thing, and encourage purchase (or the cancer that is "Repost and Follow this random irrelevant promotion network to download" ... which is another problem SoundCloud needs to solve).

It begs the question, though - with such a large engineering staff, why has SoundCloud always linked externally for "Buy" links rather than running its own store? It could capture a lot more of the value chain and lower friction-to-purchase for indie musicians. Perhaps the reason was to not be competitive with its initiatives to get record labels (who likely prefer to drive sales through existing platforms for quixotic reasons) on board for SoundCloud Go. But perhaps with new leadership and recalibration, this could actually happen. RIP Bandcamp though... or maybe they just acquire them!

> The streaming at 128kbps IMO has always been an anti-piracy measure; given that those previews are inevitably going to be scraped

I've never thought about the problem but it should be solvable. If you only stream hi quality to logged users you can track their behaviour.

We will always be able to destroy whatever pathetic little protections are put into place. As someone who produces music and uploads it to soundcloud, and has done so for 10+ years, 128kbps is a good limit.

If they want higher quality they can ask me or hear it when I play out.

Also, IIRC, there is a 'allow high-quality streaming for logged in users' checkbox in the upload editor.

> If they want higher quality they can ask me or hear it when I play out.

But that would defeat the purpose of streaming services: convenience.

> IIRC, there is a 'allow high-quality streaming for logged in users' checkbox in the upload editor

Maybe for pro users. I just uploaded a file and didn't see that option.

> But that would defeat the purpose of streaming services: convenience.

Many of us oppose this level of convenience as it cheapens our art. I'm happy to hand out mp3s or even allow them to be downloadable, if someone wants them.

And it looks like HQ streaming disappeared as a feature, just like communities. Unless it's still on pro, but I wouldn't know since at some point they converted my pro account to a free one.

Why would hand out audio files in a format that has been obsolete for a few decades ? Give me flac or any other lossless format that I can convert to flac.

s/mp3/flac/i

And mp3 is not obsolete...far from it. 320kbps is still the goldilocks standard among Bittorrent scene, and unlike the current format du jour (what is it now anyway?) it still plays everywhere

Soundcloud does a great job at frustrating me by suggesting lots of great tracks I'd love to play which I can't find available for sale anywhere. I am happy to pay for high-quality downloads via beatport / juno / bandcamp etc., but my experience with Soundcloud has been that it's rarely worth bothering to look. I don't really understand what's the point of good music discovery for previews only, if I can't get at the actual content.

Most of the artists I follow include links to Beatport/whatever and other music stores in their tracks. If yours aren't, why not ask?

Who would I ask? Most tracks on soundcloud aren't posted by the people who would be selling them, so far as my experience goes.

Often this is because they are unofficial remixes or otherwise "grey area" content where the licensing isn't in place to be able to commercially release. If you make a track using element from a well known artist, often that track will be allowed to exist in the largely non-commercially exploited environment of soundcloud but as soon as you want to release it for money then you will be hit with a copyright takedown.

> If they want higher quality they can ask me or hear it when I play out.

This defeats all the practical advantage of the internet removing limitations.

I can't ask you because I don't have an account and will not register one to do so (I actually did once to get in touch with the artist and he gave me shit) and I can't hear it when you play out because I have no idea when and where you play out and we don't even live on the same continent.

Defeating the whole point of its existence points to a non existent future. I used to use soundcloud because I could discover music and artists and download hiqh quality files. I don't go there anymore and am back to discover music and artists on file sharing between people which I've been doing since before the democratization of the internet.

You assume everyone wants as many people to hear their music as possible, under all circumstances and environments. A lot of artists want some control over how their art is consumed (as an example, I would like for people to hear my music first over a high-quality sound system, not some shitty car stereo or beats crap), which a users-first 'UX' mentality attempts to commodify.

(And before someone points out what appears to be a contradiction with my previous statements, while I think SC is for its users, its original design was much more artist-centric and extended lots of control to the people who create its content)

It sucks that the artist you reached out to decided to be lame, but my experience doing that has been the opposite.

SC still offers a download option, and as long as your track isn't flagged for copyright you can set it and unset it freely, so the lack of ability to download from Soundcloud has more to do with the artists you are browsing and/or Soundcloud's UI.

By the way, I am fully in support of piracy, so no objections here. As a principle it stands for the ownership of bits and against the commodification of art. Piracy encourages individual pursuit, curation, effort, and even creativity. Youtube and its consumption culture value none of these things.

Playing a track through soundcloud's (awful) player and downloading a track are the same action, from their perspective.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com