SoundCloud recently launched its new paid tier of its music streaming service known as SoundCloud Go. The distinctions between SoundCloud Go and the streamer's free tier are not all that apparent or exciting, and consumers so far appear reticent to subscribe to the new fee-based service.
SoundCloud's initial success was based upon a different premise than those of its current paid streaming music service competitors such as Spotify, Tidal and Apple Music. The music available on SoundCloud was unique and composed almost exclusively of content uploaded by creators themselves. The streamer built a solid reputation as the go-to service for EDM and DJ mixes and remixes and became extremely popular with listeners of that genre.
The problem was SoundCloud wasn't making enough money, and at the same time, its growth aroused the ire of the major music labels who weren't being properly compensated for all the illegally licensed content on the streamer. Under threat of litigation, SoundCloud inked deals with all three major music labels last year and pledged to offer a new paid version of its streaming service to music fans.
SoundCloud launched SoundCloud Go three months ago, touting a catalog of over 125 million songs in total, which, upon first look, dwarfs the libraries of competitors such as Apple Music and Spotify, each of which boasts catalogs of 30 million or so songs. A closer look, however, reveals that SoundCloud's catalog still consists mainly of the same unique uploaded content listeners can access on its free tier. The paid tier adds around 15 million more songs, many of which are from big artists on the major labels with which the company settled recently.
That means that in reality, consumers paying the extra $9.99 for SoundCloud Go can fork that same exact amount over to Apple or Spotify and receive double the amount of potential on-demand song choices. Since all of SoundCloud's other content is still available on its free tier, there doesn't appear to be any benefit to subscribing to SoundCloud Go as opposed to its competitors.
SoundCloud Go offers offline listening, but again, so do the major competing music streaming services. In addition, stream ripping of SoundCloud songs is an easy process that allows for user-created offline listening. The ads on SoundCloud's free tier also aren't nearly as irritating or pervasive as those on Spotify's or Pandora's free versions to the extent that one would desire to pay to remove them.
This only means that in order to get listeners to pay a monthly fee for SoundCloud Go, the company needs to differentiate itself from its rivals and give a clearer and convincing reason for them to do so. Until that happens, it looks like SoundCloud Go is a "no go" for now.
