Imo they removed hashtag browsing and destroyed the follower feed and discovery tabs. after that, how were people supposed to find each other? I remember engagement just died for most people then. with no engagement, it died as a platform.
I'm kind of here to figure that out. like you'd have more success throwing whatever track you're making into an ig reel, it would get more exposure. soundcloud is dead, for me and ppl i know. the ones who have high engagement these days, to me, usually looks sus unless it's a celeb
This and their greedyness.
Kept increasing prices while removing basic functionality from the user.
Now even having my pinned tracks on my Own account is a paid service. Fuck them
Free users got shafted too cuz they removed the user groups as well. And also as a free user even my stuff from around 2015 when the site was still highly active, only got shown to people by the actual algorithm only a fraction of times. Out of 3,700 plays it only showed my most popular track 736 times to people...over the course of a decade. Yes, the track I am talking about is from 2015. That really lets it sink in that the algorithm on SC never gave a fuck about my music.
Also not to mention the codec they use now alters the quality of music on the platform. The edm djs that went to school and also have music as their special interest because of the tism, have compared their exports with the post upload waveforms and noticed alterations in transients and LUFs and RMS
Yee it mostly happens when SC's compression algorithm detects that it doesn't have enough headroom once the file is compressed so to compensate, to prevent clipping, it flips the phase at certain parts in your song. The only real prevention you can do is not upload a track that is brickwalled, for sure the quality still gets lowered on quiet music but not as noticable as the phase of your song getting fucked. YouTube is a bit higher quality for sure, but the bad part is that it lowers or raises your track to like -12 lufs similar to Spotify, makes it so you need to get into tricks that make your track sound louder after it normalizes your song.
SoundCloud is full loudness war, so it allows you to upload songs that are clipping and will not reduce their volume. Rn breakcore and dubstep are reaching insane volume levels on SC I noticed it's to get engagement
soundcloud is the place where most the music I listen to is released, and have yet to see any other equivalent. I like the underground and I like the dj mixes that get released on soundcloud.
soundcloud has no hoops you need to jump through to simply post your music so its essential to many users. monetization is another matter that i cant speak on.
This!! Does anyone know of a cheaper and ad-free place than SoundCloud that offers a similar assortmennt of DJs and underground EDM (electronic dance music)?
Does SoundCloud offer a subscription level for ppl who just want to listen and download music without ads cheaper than the $12.99 monthly plan? Thank you.
I do the very basic plan simply so I can download DJ mixes and can play them offline when doing festival camping with my crew or when I’m flying. I believe it’s about $5/month?
Whenever i do this at fests, people younger than me are mind blown because i have an actual download and not streaming. Like ask what I'm streaming from and i tell them it's downloaded and they act like they never heard of that
I posted some of my tracks there for almost 15 years now. They are basically dead.
no discovery, no random plays, just dead.
And yes I kept making new ones.
I posted one in a new platform, and Boom 20k plays in a week.
I use SoundCloud.. i never liked Spotify. I tried it but its super meh... SoundCloud is a post based platform so artist can post as they please without requiring a subscription to a distribution company. I looked into Spotify once and the whole thing seemed to be a giant useless money driven dumpster fire of a mess.
But thats the reason Spotify is so much more popular than SoundCloud. Because it churns the corporate money monster separating financial support for artists from fans to feed the machine. That corporate machine can afford more promotions and sponsorships to grow popularity and to sustain itself then a community based music post/blog. Its still the best music sharing platform because you can totally sidestep the red tape and bureaucracy.
I also love that people can like, comment, and even share tracks. Thats really how people connect over music anyways is sharing there favorite music with friends.
Also, SoundCloud technically banned AI music meanwhile Spotify allows/encourages it in some ways so they can pay less royalties to artists (flat rate tracks lowering shares in royalty pools, etc.)
the Groups feature was pretty amazing. People who appreciate the same style of music could all share, network and even become friends. I'm in LA and I met my partner for our post-punk project back in 2012 from a goth group and we've been putting out releases ever since.
Nowadays it's like that old adage, if a SC user releases a track alone in the woods would anyone actually notice.
Ive always wished for a local social media app for musicians. Like I live in semi rural area and theres just 0 chance of meeting other musicians organically and your comment reminded me that having a way to meet other musicians near you would make a huge difference for a lot of people I think
It's the only platform I use. I find it's the best for finding tunes that maybe aren't totally "legal," like bootlegs, covers, remixes, mixes, etc. Never found an alternative that comes even close. It's also extremely easy to find tracks you can download. I know that this has become less true over time, but it also just feels far less "big tech corporate" and more grassroots than Spotify, Apple Music, etc. Commenting and interacting with artists is another plus IMO.
I still quite like it but not as much as before. I especially like it for finding dance music. I also like that I can share my more experiemental music there. That’show I think of SoundCloud. A place where you can find more interesting, experimental and underground music.
For the music i listen to and like to look for soundcloud is pretty much the only place. Most the artists I like only post on soundcloud and bandcamp nowadays.
They pitched themselves as the place anyone could post music, but within a few years anyone could get their music on spotify for a distrokid fee
Then they restricted uploads and got flamed for it, only pulling back restrictions after massive reddit complaints
Then they made their platform all based around SoundCloud pro
When anyone can upload tracks to YouTube for a half decent chance to be heard vs SoundCloud that doesnt give a shit about you, then its going to continue dying a slow death
Because it’s a generational issue, and im speaking as more of an artist than a listener but I feel like SoundCloud was extremely convenient before smartphones were in everyone’s pocket, now these kids just use TikTok and the audience for SoundCloud grew older and many left it behind, it’s almost like a lost art to be active on SoundCloud today, it’s not for everyone. As for app vs website, I think the app is perfect and great for when you’re out and about, but of course if you have access to a computer I don’t see why you would log in on the website.
as an artist I do not think is for me worth it. I did my best and did not get much traction.
As a listener I use Spotify, Soundcloud and YouTube. You know how YouTube is so I am not going to talk avbout it.
Spotify vs SounCloud - I find Spotify more structurated as SoundCloud, especially whne I search something. Spotify on the free plan has ads that stops your music and you hear 2 ads once in I do not know exactly, lets say 7 songs. This are very annoying. You cannont skip them. I do not know how the ads are on SoundCloud because I have the "for Artists" paid plan and I do not get them. On Spotify you get all the songs from big artists, but on SounCloud some songs work only with paid subscription. On the other hand you get a lot of small artist on SoundCloud because is easier for artists to upload their music to SoundCloud. Also if you are into remixes and long mixes then SoundCLoud is for you.
I love SoundCloud! I even pay monthly. In my opinion it’s the best streaming site for music. It’s great if you like mixes and other non-cliche and underground or non mainstream type of music. I have over 7000 liked songs on my account currently. It’s amazing. Sometimes it’s a little laggy and bug ish but not often at all. I highly recommend it. Try it for free first and then when you get sick of the ads just do a $5 month if you like it. Cheers. Here’s an example, this is what I’m listening to as I type this actually: “Giuseppe Ottaviano live at Creamfields 2021” it’s a hour and a half live set.
I just canceled my paid SoundCloud account (too expensive) and moved all my then-paywalled uploads to the Internet Archive—which I'm happy to support with donations.
I like SoundCloud because it has harder to find things sometimes, I joined when I wanted the Night of The Hunter soundtrack and at that time, only Soundcloud had it
When I had a paid account I was bombarded constantly with bots or poorly worded emails promising me fabulous recording contracts or hundreds and hundreds of followers. There was a barrage of supposed women telling me my music was sexy.
Then I stopped paying and got a free account where I uploaded tracks that were super short just kind of demos and I made sure I didn't go over the minimum amount you could have for free. then they changed their minds and changed the amount of data you could upload. So most of the songs disappeared. So I wrote an angry email to them basically reminding them that they were getting free content and it was simpler for them to make the site easy to use improving a call quality and keeping the spam away instead of just chargingore money, And if they got rid of all the spam I would be more than happy to have a paid account again. Next thing you know my account was down to three songs.
I like their stations, and artist pages because typically they’re made by the artist. I like their algorithm, and options for entire dj sets. Lots of remixes you can’t find other places. And some record labels gave good pages. For a reason that’s hard to explain it feels less gross than Spotify.
It’s always funny reading posts like this and also the ”SoundCloud is dead” posts because it reminds me how bit the world is and how we all live in different bubbles with different experiences
Here in Berlin jn the house and techno scene (and also across europe) SoundCloud is our mist used app. The whole scene runs on it - it’s like our o/s. Dj mixes are published on it, releases are premiered, it is how djs send unreleased tracks to each other (as private links) and it’s how labels send pre-master and master previews around.
You can check out some of the bigger dj mix profiles - look for BCCO for techno or ssvenberlin for house
Not only in house and techno, also balearic scene, but I agree that Europe is running on sc. Me as a listener, party goer and a music lover and digger just find few last changes and searches disorganized in the app, kinda killed my mix listening habbits of dj podcasts and radios I follow...
As if I did not see it over instagram, I wouldnt listened to it or see it in the app...
That's interesting I wasn't sure if it was just us in House & Techno or wider. SC is everywhere I see here we are all in it all the time. It seems from this Reddit that a lot of people have a very different view / experience, you often see posts like "SC died years ago no one uses it". I suspect its because Reddit users skew to North America and maybe its not doing so well over there.
It's interesting that SoundCloud started here in Berlin and it is still where the biggest office is. But early on they decided they wanted to be seen like an American company so they moved all /most of the leadership team to the USA and both the CFO and CEO are in New York. But it seems that despite that at least culturally it is still stronger in Europe.
these days with Spotify pushing the AI music crap and finding new ways to screw over artists, it makes me glad I’ve never been over there and instead been with SoundCloud the whole time
Depends on how you define popular. Like most things now, dominance is centered around 1 or 2 big players, then a handful of smaller ones. Also what music are you streaming?
I have a love hate relationship with SC. Its search facility has always been poor, but its the best place to find DJ mixes, although this more based on knowing a DJ. Everything about mixcloud is terrible.
For DJ mixes, there's definitely a gap in the market for something simple, engaging and functional.
However, if you truly value music and the artists you follow, buy their music as streaming services treat them terribly
They changed something with algorithms. Years ago I could get 1k listens in few days without any promotion, but today I upload something to get max 20 views. SC for me is mostly demo uploader for showing friends what I have
They charge too much for a service that doesn’t have all songs unlike other services
They have now rejected AI music unless it involves their tools which will probably hurt them with everyone because the people that hate AI will hate songs made with SoundCloud tools while AI artists (which will only increase in the mainstream) hate SoundCloud because they won’t monetize their music.
SoundCloud is directionless, shortsighted and screwed.
I own a few bigger acc & they are dead. I stopped uploading 6 years ago because of this. If I would upload, I would get 5k views on 400k-800k. We used to use a lot soundcloud reposter platforms, but it makes the job etc very boring for me. I still make money from music & it mostly comes from royalties on copyrights.
They became the curator of the music on their platform, which is the complete opposite of what the platform was built for. Instead of the home page being about what users followed, they directed towards playlists, and then added the ‘remove reposts’ toggle, which defaults to ‘on.’
The toggle should have been added years ago, but not as the default.
They should’ve also removed ‘repost to download’ options and follow limits on gateways to reduce spam.
Soundcloud was incredible many years ago, and brought me a lot of joy and success.
Another thing to note though, is artists became more interested in stream counts, than community.
I can say to a producer that I can get their music to thousands of DJs, and the response will usually be “but how many streams will it get?”
Yes but you need to at least do a bit of text taking about your process etc. show your DAW or you yourself playing the music. Make it nice and personal because you are using a visual medium (videos) to get the word out in that case. You can do black screens or just the piano roll with no discussion and that does get engagement but in my experience you have to take it a bit more seriously with the posts to YT as opposed to other platforms and also the level of gimmicky-ness is pretty important too cuz YTs algorithm really loves novelty and stuff that makes people click due to them being intrigued, or even a tutorial-like element to your videos gets lots of views
it was a good place for non-serious and budding musicians to get their ideas and songs out. many new people joined in waves during the big indie music movement, me included. there was a true underground community, because there was a very active and over saturated mainstream music industry, which back then, still included radio and television. the 'playlists' and algorithms were less refined, and were instead curated by real people. which in turn, gave real music a chance to be listened to and platformed. you essentially had a lot of people having fun, making music for fun, and sharing feedback for the love of it. the hidden goal was ofc to get management, pitch music and secure a team. all of which did happen for the best artists on soundcloud. there was an insane amount of new artists who could tour, sell merch and make their bread during this time — i think maybe you could call this the beginning of a bubble. overtime though soundcloud became stigmatized, as spotify became a premier pipeline. emerging artists have to come out swinging now... with mixed music and refined visuals. for pennies. but tbh its unhealthy... people need a place to drop their raw ideas, without having to roll out every release. soundcloud filled that niche for all skill levels of musicians, and then some. its a relic of the times now.
Yes, it’s unmatched for dance/electronic music no other service comes close due to the overwhelming presence of uncleared remixes/bootleg edits that simply aren’t on other services.
For other genres it’s a bit mid tho… hip hop can benefit from the above but less so
the best part, imo, is the easy uploading process. gives it more selection than other services for underground music, mainly rap.
ive noticed its lacking in other genres i like however, and a lot of random shit with a couple streams (thats not rap) is exclusive to go+ which is annoying if you dont have it
it also has reposts & comments, which makes it feel kind of like a music based social media. most people I know that use soundcloud are artists themselves, so its a nice feature.
if you listen to a lot more than just rap music though its not all that. spotify is better in alot of ways, it has local files and you can listen to anything you want without needing a special subscription. but it has its flaws too for sure.
i use youtube because i listen to Vocaloid mostly and most of that never makes it onto streaming or stores
i never really cared for soundcloud as a service or site or discovery platform; my main interaction with it has been embedded audio demos for synthesizers on manufacturer websides
They changed how much music buffers a couple years ago. I live in an area with no cell signal and it used to give me five minutes of buffered mix which was just enough to get into society. Not anymore, as soon as I exit wifi range kaboom. It also stutters in town occasionally when buffering. Super obnoxious.
Still, been using it for over fifteen years I'm not leaving my playlists now!
SoundCloud really went downhill, I have ArtistPro and the engagement is laughable. BandCamp is a good alternative. I’ve also released on Beatport through labels but the royalties are pretty bad.
They deleted my 13 year old account today, along with all my uploads. Lost a lot of cool stuff i only put on soundcloud back in the day. Your only option is hoping the AI chat bot gets the message to someone on their support team. I'll never use soundcloud again.
I was tossing up whether to ditch my soundcloud account and go somewhere else but I've been reminded exactly why I love SC and hate Spotify. Watching tiktok releases that are on SC made me join in the first place and then I realised there's a whole underground vibe here which I love! I'm in Aotearoa New Zealand and the basic plan is $10/m. The basic Spotify is $18.99/m blegh!! If you guys want me to listen to your music just send me links :D
There’s many reasons why people don’t use SoundCloud anymore
None of the big and up and coming artists post exclusive music there. Rappers that blew up on SoundCloud like Lil Uzi Vert, XXXTENTACION, Trippie Redd, Lil Peep, etc. all had music on there that wasn’t on streaming. Mainstream rappers nowadays just post their music on all platforms
SoundCloud is basically only used for rap music. Most mainstream non-rap music is Go+ only (SoundCloud’s premium plan)
They completely sabotaged their user interface and also ruined the discovery tab
Most people have just moved on to other services like Spotify and Apple Music
A lot of people kept using SoundCloud for unreleased/leaked music but as the years went by the leaks kept getting copyrighted and removed. This was a struggle for listeners and people like me moved on to local files on other services
It’s not ideal for artists anymore. Since SoundCloud has declined overtime and they fucked up the user interface and discovery, what’s the point of even trying?
The audio quality is significantly inferior to streaming platforms
The ads have become far more annoying since nobody wants to pay for their premium plan. From what I understand there was a point where SoundCloud had no ads but now the ads are awful
I mean I still occasionally use SoundCloud but just barely
Reminds me a bit of bandcamp, finding songs there that I don't find anywhere else, especially indie artist kind of stuff.
I find soundcloud's pricing a bit expensive though if you compare it to other platforms. But I like that you don't have to use and pay a music distributor to upload your music. Anyway it's getting less and less interesting for people that don't pay for a subscription, they lowered your upload time from 180 minutes to 120 minutes and I wouldn't surprised if it is getting less and less over time, not the smartest move of a platform that is losing many users every year.
And don't expect to get many views if you don't pay for a sub, be happy with 20 views lol.
As someone who posted on soundcloud to get some of my earliest gigs like 11-13 years ago the appeal of soundcloud is to return 8, 9, 10 years later & still find the people you love posting there. Not because it's the best platform- but because over a decade later I can come back & see if they're still active, and the UI, even after being gone for years, doesn't get in the way of that.
I can just type in a name of an old pal or an artist I used to love & see where they've gone since, or just pull up throwbacks like an archive from heaven.
Now its full of ads and AI "music", can't listen to more than a track or 2 before being asaulted by some stupid AI slop that has nothing to do with what you are listening or an AI robotic voice telling you to buy sextoys or some dropshopping slop, for as long as the ad is playing the app is basicaly bricked telling you "must finish ad before proceeding".
Originally I stopped using it because it seemed like more of the music was becoming paywalled when originally it was free. I just tried it again because a lot of the songs I had on my original likes I couldn’t get on Spotify. Was amazing, seemed like the sound mixing really fit the style of music on top of the “exclusive” songs…then about 5 songs in, the app stopped connecting to my speaker and despite multiple troubleshooting attempts it wouldn’t reconnect -_- So back to Spotify it is
honestly idk ive been using it for the past 2 to 3 years i mean it is still a good platform just that you might need to pay up to use other features but other then that it has some peak songs that arent on spotify
Distributors like DistroKid, CD Baby, RouteNote, etc. kind of killed soundcloud.
I've been using SoundCloud since 2012 and during that time it was the only place artists could release music without a real Record Deal from a major record label. Now with DistroKid and the like, anyone can release their music on all the major streaming platforms.
All the 2016-2017 rappers blew up off of soundcloud (and all of edm) because that was the only place they could release music. Think lil yachty, xxxtentacion, juice wrld, kodak black, etc. or Subtronics if you're an EDM guy.
I still love soundcloud, but now its mostly used by artists/producers. Sharing private tracks with other artists you want to work with, releasing remixes that you don't have the rights to officially release, and connecting with other artists.
Also, for artists, the monetization royalties from SoundCloud are far better than the royalties I get from spotify and apple music combined (and I get way less plays on soundcloud).
I’ve used it for decades (😢) it just seems to be a bit enshittified now. I get that they want to make money from the platform it’s only natural but can’t help but feel some of the paid features are abysmal.
Soundcloud sold the company and the new owners have stripped everything, turned the systems to jank, replaced tech support with busted AI ("human" support is just another AI), and do everything they can to avoid fixing anything. It's a wreck.
My bad. They "restructured owners" in 2017 and started stripping it in 2024 to make it look "profitable" so that they can get someone to buy it. I misremembered that they sold it because I recalled this from early 2025 w/o looking it up.
Cause it's shit? Badly programmed, horrible layout and features, and you gotta pay for the basic artist features. It sends bots to your track when it's supposed to send real listeners. It's overall crap, and their support takes a month to get back to you.
I haven’t deleted anything, my response to your whiny-baby comment is still up. It’s one of two replies I made on this post. If you felt flamed by it then maybe your take was just genuinely bad.
my point is you praying on their downfall is the equivalent of advocating for a world where all we have is Spotify and Apple Music. I don’t want to live in that world.
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u/Ok-Ninja-9174 Mar 07 '26
Imo they removed hashtag browsing and destroyed the follower feed and discovery tabs. after that, how were people supposed to find each other? I remember engagement just died for most people then. with no engagement, it died as a platform.
people tried to warn them not to do this