The music industry as we know it is changing around our ears. If the beginning of the migration from physical CDs to digital downloads placed the cool barrel of a loaded gun at the music industry’s temple then the evolution from digital downloads to music streaming placed a sweaty, unsure finger on the trigger and hoped for the best. The support of digital streaming comes as us consumers make use of our faster Internet connections and mobile data plans, as we want to search for new music that’s outside of the sugary sweet realms of Top 40 pop and most importantly, we don’t want to pay for the privilege. SoundCloud is the service that gives us all that but as competitors like Spotify cannibalise the market and take everyone else’s market share with them, SoundCloud is having to introduce ads in order to make ends meet.
Unlike Spotify’s often irritating advertisements that interject themselves between songs, SoundCloud’s ads will be “occasional”, the company tells The New York Times. Granted, that word could be used so that they don’t alienate their 175 million monthly listeners but what few ads we are made to listen to will actually benefit us (and the musicians that we love to listen to) in the long run.
With the new roll out of ‘On SoundCloud’ three tiers will be made available to the music creating masses – Standard, Pro and Premium. Musicians and record labels have to pay for the benefits of being part of the scheme which seems a bit unusual given that without these creators, SoundCloud wouldn’t be able to offer us the buffet cart of audio that it currently does but nonetheless, Standard, Pro have their own perks and Premium is the one that cuts you in on a slice of the ad revenue.
Without these ads, SoundCloud wouldn’t be able to exist in its current state. Rumours from earlier this year suggest that Twitter wanted to buy the service for several millions of dollars but that has clearly not come to fruition. Ads also mean that we still get (almost) the same SoundCloud service for free whilst the creators that get the most listens – teen pop sensation Lorde made her own fame after uploading ‘Royals’ to the site – will be able to make bank and continue making the music they love for the fans they adore just as much, without a record label backing them.
It doesn’t even spell the end of streaming as we know it either, it seems to be a case of survive or die. SoundCloud will soon go against YouTube’s (yet unnamed) streaming efforts, Apple now owns headphone brand Beats and its streaming service and the aforementioned Spotify continues to point its burning glare on SoundCloud’s back. This is just SoundCloud becoming sustainable then and if we don’t like the ads, we could just pay to subscribe and go ad-free. But, I suspect, plenty won’t like the addition of that new feature either.
Will you stop using SoundCloud because of the ads or do you think it’s worth it to use SoundCloud for free?
