All your bass are belong to us: Soundcloud fans raid site for music amid fears of total collapse

Music hosting biz SoundCloud, having just axed 40 per cent of its staff, is now trying to ward off rumors that it will go broke in less than two months. The song-sharing service was rumored to be in crisis mode and had to shut its doors, with just 50 days of funding left before it ran out of cash. A spokesperson insisted …

[J. R. Hartley]

Move every zig

[Anonymous C0ward]

For great justice.

[Snorlax]

Other people's money

Jesus. They burned through $193m of VC money in nine years, and got another $70m of credit in March this year https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/soundcloud/

Surely the point must come where you say "ok, we gave it a go but we're a bunch of fuckups"

[Sampler]

Re: Other people's money

Hey, let's run an online company and headoffice in some of the most expensive physical locations for no real reason...that's one way to burn through a ton of cash!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Other people's money

Probably good fun while it lasts though. I'm considering going for startup jobs.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Other people's money

Astounding. I have some magic beans. Anyone willing to invest? I have a path to profitability for them : it involves a very special goose and a giant.

[Frederic Bloggs]

Don't exaggerate

It's 80 days!

[Anonymous Coward]

Love a good cloud failure

Look forward to reading the autopsy report in 80 days. Especially if there was Kafkaesque managerial ineptitude.

[Ramazan]

BTW, guys, you didn't do a followup to this article:

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/11/06/ginger_nuts/

This had been covered on wikipedia: "Noko claimed that the money was a gift after she and Baker became lovers. Baker replied, "I've a scar that only a woman who had a thing with me would know. It's there and she doesn't know it's there".[18] Noko pled not guilty, but was convicted of fraud and in October 2010 was sentenced to three years of "correctional supervision," a type of community service. Baker responded to the sentence as "a travesty".[19]"

P.S.

Compare this: Cream - Sunshine of Your Love - Live Early Prototype - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elmtuLnmthQ

to this:

Cream - Sunshine of your love - Royal Albert Hall 2005 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyftaay-pFA

Looks like the Cream played it twice faster back in the days...

[Sanctimonious Prick]

Who?

SoundCloud?

Sure I've heard the name.

[Ramazan]

We continue to be confident

the spokesperson told El Reg... "We continue to be confident that if we just flog this dead horse harder it will put us on our path to profitability and ensure SoundClowns' long-term viability."

[Ramazan]

will put us on our path to profitability

I'll be with you darling soon,

I'll be with you when the pigs start flying

[Anonymous Coward]

9 years

This is the problem with the Silicon Valley approach to business models (ie none).

In the olden days you had to have a business plan to start a business, whether borrowing from the bank or an investor.

To be honest soundcloud was not that bad a service but it always seemed to go from a free very limited service to really expensive for anything workable.

A friend of mine is a DJ and has close to 20 - 25 hour long mixes available for download. A 123 reg hosting account is far more economic so you don't pay for every single download. She started on Soundcloud and pretty much ticked every box for their ideal customer... and was willing to pay, just not as much as they wanted.

[a_yank_lurker]

Re: 9 years

To paraphrase 'Who needs no stinking business plan?'. To many SV VCs are looking to hit a grandslam with some who is hitting below the 'Mendoza Line' (a baseball player with a pathetic batting average) when they should be looking to find a Tony Gwen (one of the best hitters of his generation).

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: 9 years

"To many SV VCs are looking to hit a grandslam"

From the outside looking in, some of these VC just seem to have so much cash, they can afford to take a wide betting spread in the hope that one of them will be a grand slam. They're all looking to be in on the ground floor of the next Google or Facebook and if they bet often enough, they might win. I doubt any of them are betting the farm though. They have plenty tucked away in other "safe" investments.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: 9 years

Did Google have a business plan? I suspect they really didn't early on. Worked OK for them.

[David 164]

Re: 9 years

Page and Brin admitted they didn't.

[Amorous Cowherder]

Hmmm, chalk up one more reason why investing in a nice chunky NAS box or two ( need to mirror, right! ) to store your music and vids is a good option, you're not beholden to some fly-by-night "service" that will upsticks and bugger off with your carefully crafted entertainment selections. Welcome to the real world Millennial types who seem to think the Internet is running on Unicorn farts and rainbows and where nothing ever goes wrong!

[tfewster]

Aha, that's just what the RIAA and NASty manufacturers WANT you to think, to increase their sales!

[phuzz]

Most musicians don't have the money, time or expertise to make their music freely available to anyone around the world from their home. Soundcloud did all that for them, along with providing a central place where people knew they could listen to all sorts of music, making it slightly more likely for unknown artists to be found.

How does a home NAS help with any of those things?

[Anonymous Coward]

A home NAS is for private shunting of goodies. A musician is likely to be talking about considerably less volume, so a couple of hundred quid for a website would be the way to go for musicians.

[John Brown (no body)]

"How does a home NAS help with any of those things?"

It helps with not losing all their work when $hosting_provider goes TITSUP.

[John Brown (no body)]

"Welcome to the real world Millennial types who seem to think the Internet is running on Unicorn farts and rainbows and where nothing ever goes wrong!"

Yes, the comments in the article from users does strongly imply many of these users have their only copies of what, to them at least, is very valuable works. No local copies, no backups elsewhere. On some level, I almost hope that something big like soundcloud does suddenly go bust suddenly so that people are forced to learn the lesson people like us have been preaching for years.

[caffeine addict]

I wonder how many of their users are using ad blockers...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Fully funded into the fourth quarter"

Is not all that much different than "less than 50 days of cash" when you're already half a month into the third quarter...

[caffeine addict]

Re: "Fully funded into the fourth quarter"

Last time I checked, (at least 160 days) > (less than 50 days) by quite a significant margin.

[Jedit]

Re: "Fully funded into the fourth quarter"

"Fully funded into the fourth quarter" doesn't automatically mean "fully funded through the fourth quarter", though. They could have enough cash to keep the lights on until October 1st and no more, and still make their claim.

That said, it's still more than fifty days until the end of Q3 2017.

[msknight]

Not the first time... won't be the last...

https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2016/03/09/soundcloud-shutting-down-not-anytime-soon-executive-says/

[Snorlax]

Re: Not the first time... won't be the last...

That feeling of deja vu again...

SoundCloud Posts $53 Million Loss For 2015, “May Run Out Of Cash”

http://www.thefader.com/2017/01/05/soundcloud-53-million-loss-2015

SoundCloud financial results show loss in 2014 - Music Ally

http://musically.com/2016/02/09/soundcloud-financial-results-2014/

SoundCloud Posted A $29M Loss In 2013 On Revenues Of $14M

https://techcrunch.com/2014/10/11/soundcloud-posted-a-29m-loss-in-2013-on-revenues-of-14m/

Their Berlin HQ looks nice tho: https://www.officelovin.com/2014/11/25/another-look-inside-soundclouds-berlin-headquarters/

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Not the first time... won't be the last...

Well from their Berlin office pics, I may of seen the problem.

Everyone is doing bugger all work, especially the bloke in the orange t-shirt.

(Yes I know).

[kolkurtz]

The site is a sewer. I've never had so many beautiful female fans with empty profiles in my life.

[Jason Bloomberg]

Evidence-based journalism

Many are flocking to the site seeking to download as much music as possible ahead of an anticipated shutdown.

I could understand that and believe it without needing to see four tweets as evidence.

Not that four tweets prove "many". Can you add some more? That would really add to the story.

Mine's the one with "The Little Book of Sarcasm" in the pocket -->

[Dabooka]

That Twitter feed

Hurts my head. It also suggests to me that their user base are a bunch of fuckwits anyway, never going to squeeze a 10 bob bit out of that lot

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably the panic downloading will have enough of an effect on bandwidth to tip them over...

[Aynon Yuser]

Oh.

[RedCardinal]

>>Users, meanwhile, don't seem to be buying it. Many are flocking to the site seeking to download as much music as possible ahead of an anticipated shutdown.

And how exactly do you know this? Oh wait, you don't do you...