2019 was not a good year for SoundCloud, it has lost several users and many artists have complained about it on YouTube saying things like ‘I’m done with SoundCloud’, ‘Why no one should use SoundCloud?’, ‘What is happening on weird SoundCloud’ etc.
Thanks to its expensive hosting costs, weird content takedown policies and lagging user experience SoundCloud has lost thousands of loyal users.
Taking advantage of this, Roneil Rumburg and colleagues have come up with an application built with artists in mind, dubbed Audius. Audius’ CEO and Co-Founder said in a statement that SoundCloud lost its opportunity which is now ours to grab.
Audius launched its music streaming and free hosting service on 24th September. The service is already backed by big names like deadmau5, Rezz, 3LAU, The Stafford Brothers and Zed’s Dead. As the service has just started, the library is small and has a few hundred artists on board, but the company has big plans to bring more artists to its platform.
Audius is not a mobile or web application. It uses an open-source protocol built-on the blockchain. Which means the company is not hosting the music but is actually decentralizing it over independent nodes. This is a smart move as it will protect the company from record label companies pressuring them and lawsuits.
Right now, the service is completely free, and artists cannot make money through it but, according to the CEO, the company plans to add ads and subscription models from 2020 to help artists earn through Audius. Around 90 percent of the revenue will go to the artists.