Soundcloud just got real bad

Soundcloud have releaved themselves for what they were all along and it's no surprise. I just didn't expect this move. As a non-"pro"(or "GO") user, I can't go back and delete old tracks to make up the 90 minutes I've overrun, which means that unless I pay up I'm forced to delete new tracks, thus fucking all the exposure I've gained from all of my most recent work.
 
They've literally made it so once out of "pro" mode your old tracks are INVISIBLE (and I cannot delete them). THE ONLY WAY TO UPLOAD NEW TRACKS THEN MEANS YOU HAVE TO DELETE YOUR NEW ONES (UNLESS OF COURSE YOU PAY THEM THEIR PRO/GO FEE. THIS WAS NOT ALWAYS THE CASE!!!!!)
 
I've paid for pro one last time, but this is the last time. Not going to financially support this piece of shit platform.
I'll have to delete all my new stuff and then re-upload and just use this as a small space to promote my bandcamp space. (a company that seems to have maintained my respect over the years)

https://soundcloud.com/bitraete/too-poor-to-pay-for-pro-anymore

soundcloud is a pretty great platform. I don't understand why you would expect to use something so frequently without paying for it?

  On 11/10/2016 at 6:50 AM, AdieuErsatzEnnui said:

soundcloud is a pretty great platform. I don't understand why you would expect to use something so frequently without paying for it?

I've used it for years and paid for it with no problems. Did you even read my post?

not really. just continue paying for it?

What a shitty thing to do. Yeah, I understand that Soundcloud needs the money really bad, but why not give people a reason to subscribe to your service instead of forcing it on people and making them hate your brand? No one really cares about this "go" shit. You don't get screwed over by them and you're able to save all tracks and also have access to diet Spotify at 128kbs. Does that sound enticing to you?

A good example of a service done really right is YouTube Red. It's really only suited for mobile use but there is an actual intensive there: No ads, being able to save videos, (and the biggest one I think) a Google Play Music subscription. Now if I recall, the Play thing doesn't have the library that Spotify does but still, it's really convenient when you're on the go. It also helps that it's the same price as Spotify.

Now if only Soundcloud would actually give people a real incentive to give them money... Until then I'd use Bandcamp as at least a backup. They're fine folks.

Pay for one month and go back and delete your old tracks then be free for a while, rinse and repeat

  On 11/10/2016 at 7:21 AM, Zeffolia said:

Pay for one month and go back and delete your old tracks then be free for a while, rinse and repeat

The main point was that all the effort put into getting your tracks into people's like lists etc are lost because you have to delete your tracks.

It's simply favoring those who have more funds over those who don't.

And considering artists are the ones who struggle the most financially, isn't this just pure utter fucking shit and just encouraging a decline in innovation over formulaic commercialised crap?

Thing is. How CAN you make these music platforms more profitable?  This community loves buying music, but a LOT the general populace just wants it for free.

Also their GO thing is horrible. There's no way to filter out what tracks you are looking at. For instance, it's arduous to go back and look at Aphex's originally posted tracks, when you have to wade through the GO tracks. You should be able to filter it out by uploaded tracks, and GO tracks, and in addition to that, by album, date, name, etc etc

Totally tangental, but- I use this to download soundcloud tracks:

http://en.savefrom.net/

Iiiif any of you didn't know about it or other methods of downloading...  There you go.

Btw, another thing I recommend is making a secondary profile for misc. music. I just called mine "name"-2. You know, instead of having a totally different name for it. Unless it's another project of course.

This sounds pretty bad but what kind of "old" are we talking about ? The oldest ones on my profile are from 2014 and I can still delete them.

hmm it says i can still delete tracks? (a non paying user)

  On 11/10/2016 at 2:28 PM, pyramidpanes said:

hmm it says i can still delete tracks? (a non paying user)

I think it depends on how many tracks you've got uploaded and how much you've over-run. Like I'm 90 minutes over what I would get on a free account.

This whole thing has become a bit confusing to me now, so I've posted an update on the original page:

    Quote

UPDATE: Whether or not this has always been the case has become a point of doubt now considering I've been paying for pro for so long and I've taken full-advantage of the extra minutes.

Regardless though, it's still shitty to force people to have no choice about deleting their oldest tracks having switched from pro to free (and having used up all (at least the majority) of their minutes).

 

It's certainly hard for media companies to strike the right balance between providing a service that has value to customers, both the consumers and producers of the product.

I think the big mistake most of these places make is to offer it free and unlimited up front, and then when they realize the model is unsustainable, they dial things back and put up the paywall without thinking about how to best accommodate the consumers and producers.

I think a good model would be to "grandfather" in existing customers until a set period of time, and require all new or renewing members to purchase the paid services, but still offer some benefits as an existing customer, like an inaugural discount.

I agree, Joyrex. Just want to say, I pulled the original soundcloud upload (with including post) from soundcloud because I became too doubtful about whether this was a new change with soundcloud. (see here for my explanation for my new doubt about this).

Despite all of this as well, I think we can all agree that the transition from "free to pro", to "free to pro, to GO", is bullshit.