Richard D James SoundCloud - A Gift To The Fans

[DavieAddison]

Spotify wouldn't buy Soundcloud for a billion so apparently Google is looking at buying it for $500 million

[Brisbot]

I doubt Soundcloud is going to go bankrupt, they're fairly successful and I only see people on this forum saying they're going to go bankrupt. I just think they have hit a ceiling of how much money they can make currently. It's obvious their GO thing failed, when it's much easier to just go to spotify, itunes, etc.

It seems like they make most of their money from ads, and then from the suckers (like me) who shell out 10 bucks a month to have a little more control over their tracks.

[JS20]

Are they actually MAKING money now?  In 2013 the company lost 29 million Euro, 39m in 2014, and 51m in 2015. 

https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/06343600/filing-history/MzE2NTI4NzczOWFkaXF6a2N4/document?format=pdf&download=0

 

I know they have changed their business model and shacked up with Big Music to try and actually turn a profit, maybe 2016 was absolutely phenomenal for them (their 2016 financial statements haven't been published on GOV.uk yet)... but generally speaking, companies that lose boatloads of money year after year don't last forever unless their government bails them out or they sell to a bigger company.

http://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/google-mulling-soundcloud-buyout-say-whispers-sony-universals-stakes-revealed/

 

Co-founder of SoundCloud, Alexander Ljung, says:

 

The assumption of a successful launch of the new subscription service is the key element of [our] financial projections for the next three years… [This] bears financial risks regarding the operating results and cash flows of the group. 

 

The occurrence of these risks can seriously affect the ability of the group to generate sufficient cash to cover the planned expenditures and could require the Group to raise additional funds which have not yet been agreed.

 

SoundCloud may run out of cash earlier than December 31, 2017…These matters give rise to a material uncertainty about the Group’s ability to continue as a growing concern.

 

Whilst the directors believe that the Group will have sufficient funds to continue to meet its liabilities through 31 December 2017, the risks and uncertainties may cause the company to run out of cash earlier than that date, and would require the Group to raise additional funds which are not currently planned.

 

If their new business model is not a smashing run-away success then they'll probably either have to sell to Google for half of what they thought they were worth, or wind the company down and hope they have enough cash remaining to pay off all the money they borrowed (over $40 million US) from a few private investors in California in April 2015. 

Running out of cash and not being able to repay debts is pretty much the definition of going bankrupt.  Depending on their repayment terms, with that debt ($40m + 5% interest) they could be facing a multi-year financial requirement to not only prevent losing another 180+ million over the next 3 years, but also to consistently generate enough "spare" revenue to repay their creditors.  The most revenue (not the same as profit) they have managed to generate in a year is 21 million.  Even if their 2016 and 2017 revenue is triple what it was in 2015, they would likely still lose money in both those years, especially if they continue tacking on an extra 10m per year in losses in order to generate that revenue.  Based on the fact that the co-founder states that they could run out of cash this year if the business model they implemented last year isn't working, I doubt their 2016 revenues were 4x higher than 2015, so... I'd wager they lost money again.  In my opinion the company is not doing well at all, financially anyway, but time will tell if the new boat floats or not.

 

If they end up selling to Google, I wouldn't dismiss the possibility that Google'd cannibalize the essence of SoundCloud, port that into their Google Play suite, then pull a Revolv and put the legacy SC site on 6-months-until-bricked notice, giving developers a chance to learn the new API and users a chance to migrate their tracks.  I'd expect a hefty round of DRM/fingerprinting against the incoming audio.

 

Employee ratings of the company took a dive a while back and haven't gone back up, which usually not a good sign.  Half the reviewers think SC are not doing well, and many don't believe they have a future there.  (screenshot of Glassdoor.com page)

Edited January 7, 2017 by jsmcpn

[Kennylogg Bubblebath]

Soundcloud is apparently gonna go bankrupt soon (most likely), so hopefully Richard finds somewhere else to post the tracks. I vote bandcamp so we can give him our cash

 

http://aphextwin.bleepstores.com

 

pls

[The Wumbo Man]

Nice post jsm. It'd be a shame for the site to die, cos it's pretty much the best way of finding underground music imo. 

 

In terms of RDJ's soundcloud, I guess it just depends on if he's ever going to upload more tracks. I doubt he's going to re-upload the ~200 tracks that used to be up, but seeing as we got a new track a couple of weeks ago I wouldn't be surprised if he just drip feeds us with a new upload every couple of months. If he does that then I really hope he finds a more permanent place to upload them, it'd be a shame to lose access to them.

[goDel]

Really don't believe the subscription thing will save them. That is not going to fly. Not sure who will buy sc though. There's not a working business model, unless google can somehow make it work by reducing costs to keep it in the air.

 

Hope richie will move his tracks to bleepstore and considers adding soundcloud functionalities to it. So the platform to post and chat about music is combined with directly buying them. (don't think bleep is wealthy enough to buy sc though)

[Real Human Bean]

Hope Matt Dryhurst spends more time working on his Saga thing and making it more viable for general folks to use and/or that Resonate thing.

 

Edited January 7, 2017 by Brian Dance

[JS20]

Nice post jsm. It'd be a shame for the site to die, cos it's pretty much the best way of finding underground music imo. 

 

It certainly would be a shame - most of the money I've spent on music in the last 4 years was a direct result of discovering new indie artists through SC.  Problem is, the sales took place on Bandcamp or elsewhere!

 

Really don't believe the subscription thing will save them. That is not going to fly. Not sure who will buy sc though. There's not a working business model, unless google can somehow make it work by reducing costs to keep it in the air.

 

Hope richie will move his tracks to bleepstore and considers adding soundcloud functionalities to it. So the platform to post and chat about music is combined with directly buying them. (don't think bleep is wealthy enough to buy sc though)

 

Bleep is definitely not in a position to acquire a company that is bleeding money.  As of June 2015, Bleep Limited was worth NEGATIVE 116k GBP.  Fortunately, Warp Records owns 80% of Bleep, and Warp is on pretty stable financial ground -116k isn't gonna make or break them.  Bleep seems to be turning things around though, and I bet Autechre's store made a nice improvement to the company's 2016 finances.  If Richard joined them, it could make a huge difference.

Edited January 7, 2017 by jsmcpn

[goDel]

 

Nice post jsm. It'd be a shame for the site to die, cos it's pretty much the best way of finding underground music imo. 

 

It certainly would be a shame - most of the money I've spent on music in the last 4 years was a direct result of discovering new indie artists through SC.  Problem is, the sales took place on Bandcamp or elsewhere!

 

 

That's the thing I don't understand about SC. Why not introduce store-functionalities without linking to external stores? Bandcamp misses the chatter from SC. And SC misses the buy options from Bandcamp.

[Hail Sagan]

 

 

Nice post jsm. It'd be a shame for the site to die, cos it's pretty much the best way of finding underground music imo. 

 

It certainly would be a shame - most of the money I've spent on music in the last 4 years was a direct result of discovering new indie artists through SC.  Problem is, the sales took place on Bandcamp or elsewhere!

 

 

That's the thing I don't understand about SC. Why not introduce store-functionalities without linking to external stores? Bandcamp misses the chatter from SC. And SC misses the buy options from Bandcamp.

 

 

 

good point. having followers and interaction on top of being able to purchase albums would be cool. 

[Richie Sombrero]

Going back through the dump and downloaded the final version, surprising amount of tracks I missed at the time or had in lower quality.

 

Gonna mix up a load of it again now I've had more time to digest it all.

[cern]

 

 

on tnodvood104

"your welcome any time to come and join in the fun, if its getting too lonely in your zone"

He repeats it 2 times with that creepy Richard voice. 

[delet...]

Bloody hell, takes a while to sort through on a tablet the context of the comment you quoted. The number of comments per track is epic, so I stay away from trawling through there. eneewae

[auxien]

So, um, not to sound like a lazy bastard but is there anywhere that has a complete list/links/etc. to the SC dump tracks? I couldn't keep up and gave up listening to all the new (old) shit about a year ago...some wonderful soul had compiled the tracks into "Old Tapes" download packs, of which I have 1-12. Where should I start looking/listening to more? It can't be as simple as just going through the SC page, right? He was deleting shit left and right back then, I assume that habit held up?

[Uros]

Hey seriously dude, the thread called "soundcloud complete collection" is just below this thread. Ok, maybe little misleading title but here's the link:

 

http://forum.watmm.com/topic/89649-user18081971-soundcloud-complete-collection/

 

The last time I checked Archive.org has also the tracks archived. I don't know about the newest one but while I'm at it, please rich please enable download....please. My 128 kbps rip just isn't enough.

 

And if the google doc hasn't been hacked again, it should be found here:

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11ouNaaVrNp60Ib34Kp0TO1n1XSc7-9DvfiZ9ZiTiD2c/htmlview

 

(BTW, just fooling with you mate, enjoy the tracks <3 )

Edited January 10, 2017 by Grumpy Old Daddy

[auxien]

Thank you Grumpy, I admit my post was made in a half-sleep stupor, I didn't even think to look elsewhere in the Aphex subforum at all. Will get to DLing and listening later :)

[Consul]

Richard just reposted the track "-■":

 

Edited January 12, 2017 by Consul

[Hail Sagan]

edit: I see what you mean 

Edited January 12, 2017 by Hail Sagan

[Bubba69]

that's nice of him to do!

[Brisbot]

That Ue Li guy is pretty interesting. Super minimal. The track he reposted was just ok but the other 2 I like a lot more. I normally don't like super minimal stuff, but some of the tracks are interesting anyway.

Is Ue Li a known artist?

Edited January 13, 2017 by Brisbot

[Consul]

When I saw that picture of Ue Li, it instantly reminded me of Universal Indicator for some reason.

[Ivan Ooze]

Luls at people thinking Ue Li is afx

[triachus]

on 41

soz i hit that button by mistake! didnt check any of your tunes yet.

lol

[Ivan Ooze]

he posted something awesome in the uchoob links

 

 

 

fuckin lit

[colunga]

thats pretty wild