Where Is SoundCloud 'Go'ing?

Today the "YouTube for sounds" service SoundCloud announced the launch of SoundCloud Go, a subscription service which unlocks many tunes from big-name labels and offline storage. Having tried it, I'm completely underwhelmed. I love SoundCloud as a service, I really do. It is my go-to platform to discover new music. And while Go is a good effort, its implementation falls short.

For $9.99 or $12.99 a month, it's hard to not compare to Spotify or other big name music streaming services. After all, it's the same price. But what you're getting isn't the same value. I love SoundCloud for its collection of unique indie artists, and that's there whether I have Go or not. Go is supposed to add licensed music from big-name labels, but it doesn't. Searching for the likes of Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, or any other superstar artist just doesn't pull up any real results. Go results are in their own separate page when you search so it's easy to distinguish, but it's almost never what I'm looking for. The organization of the songs is random at best, sometimes putting covers or tributes ahead of the actual music. Forget artist or album pages, too. When I first saw Go on the SoundCloud homepage this morning, I was hoping SoundCloud could do something YouTube is still struggling to do. Find a happy medium between user generated content and licensed music. I was let down hard.

Sure, you get an ad-free experience and the ability to download tracks, but that's hardly worth $9.99/month. If they implemented this licensed music functionality in a decent manner and added more organization tools, and signed up more labels, and bundled their Pro features, then and only then it might be worth the price tag.

Like I said, I love SoundCloud. I just wish they would stop limiting themselves and try to become a real contender. This half-baked implementation of a Spotify-esque streaming system just shows that SoundCloud needs to get its act together. There have been many rumors circulating of SoundCloud losing huge amounts of money, which doesn't surprise me. Their only ways of income are ads and pro sales. (And now Go sales.) But paying off record labels so they don't sue and the cost for hosting music is crushing them. Unfortunately, the only solution to this is a paid tier that doesn't, well, suck.

Sources: SoundCloud, Engadget