# Dear Soundcloud... - Site: Analog Industries - Author: Chris Randall - Date: 2010-11-13 - URL: https://analogindustries.com/2010/11/dear-soundcloud/ _\[Embedded media, no longer available.\]_ [Micronaut - Capacitor](http://soundcloud.com/chris-randall/sets/micronaut-capacitor) by [Chris Randall](http://soundcloud.com/chris-randall) Soundcloud, you're turning in to the uncle that we don't really want to invite to the Christmas Eve party, but, well, he's family, and we'll just have to put up with his drunken ranting and meth habit. I think it might be time for an intervention. You're in an extremely lofty position as one of the three net-related services I pay directly for. (The other two are TuneCore and DeviantArt, if you're curious.) I do, however, realize that I pay for every service I use in some manner, usually by thoughtfully aiming my eyeballs at ads, or via a percentage (like BandCamp.) In any case, the result of this direct payment on my part is that I feel like I have license to bitch and moan a little bit. Soundcloud, you need to get your shit together. Your service, when it works, is incredibly useful. But I live in Phoenix, Arizona, where it's never a rainy day, and I sure do get tired of various features not working, or your more-or-less constant lack of bandwidth. In your defense, you're not a bunch of hypocrites like the folks at Vimeo, who act all neck-beardy and web-2-point-oh-ee when it suits them, but take all sorts of corporate Gawker-cock behind the curtain. So I give you a pass, but seriously, it's time to get on the "Let's All Just Have A Service That Works As Advertised" bus, or I'm gonna take my money elsewhere. This is all because I love you, and I hope you realize that. ## Comments (11) **darklordjames** (2010-11-13): This sounds a lot like my experience with Hulu Plus. As a service it is pretty shit, but it offers up streaming content to my living room that I can't easily get elsewhere. So, I pay my $10 a month, and put up with half-baked software attached to shitty servers. Because I pay my $10 though, I am in constant contact with their support guys telling then to fix their broken shit. **MrBiggs** (2010-11-13): God Bless You Mr. Randall. I just discovered the other day, after months of banging my head against the wall, that SC works better with Firefox than with Safari. Most of the time it wouldn't even play. But yeah it's really surprising how much Soundcloud still feels like beta. **Chris Randall** (2010-11-13): Most everything works better with Firefox than Safari. ;-) Seriously, though, I've actually never looked at Soundcloud with Safari, to the best of my knowledge. The only time that browser has ever been started on my Macs in recent memory was by accident. So all my problems are unrelated to that; good tip, though. -CR **boobs** (2010-11-13): i don't pay for any of these on line services (accept for my monthly comcast rape). they seem to give away enough free service for my needs and i'm good w/that. plus, having 2 websites, a facebook page, myspace (i think i still have a myspace page. it must be withering on the vine?), flickr pro (ok i guess i pay for one).. i think that's it.. anyway - i refuse to be nickel and dimed. i guess if the things i did w/the internet, like music, actually generated some kind of income then i'd release some nickels and dimes but for now i'm content to say harrumph and keep my change. **beauty pill** (2010-11-13): And, seriously, WHY CAN'T WE DOWNLOAD SETS? What the fuck? How HARD can that be to implement? All of these fancy features and apps and the most basic popularly requested thing is still out of reach? SO STRANGE! - c **shamann** (2010-11-14): They have an odd approach to sets in general, can't download them, can't favourite them, can't comment on them. I'm glad they seem to be making some useful changes recently, for a while they didn't appear to be fixing anything. I've yet to pay for it as it hasn't reached a point of great utility for me. **Blake** (2010-11-15): I'm with boobs. **stretta** (2010-11-15): I find it frustrating that tracks (in track view) and sets always appear in chronologically-created order. You can order tracks within a set of course, but that is the extent of ordering available. **Chris Randall** (2010-11-15): My main complaint, other than mechanical issues, is the timeline comments. I wish I could turn them off by default globally. But that's fairly minor compared to having to upload and tag everything twice more often than not, or having the embedded player only work 3 times in 5, or having the site be slow as molasses in January most of the time. All that shit is, I assume, the whole "victim of our own success" vibe they continually kick. -CR **puffer** (2010-11-15): But is there an alternative? It would be great to be able to say, Well I'll take my business elsewhere. But is there elsewhere? Soundcloud offer a unique set of features of musicians and DJs, it's just that its sort of a gamble whether those features will actually work as expected. **shamann** (2010-11-15): I think there are many alternatives, but each has its own flaws or limitations. Even something as joyless to use as Soundclick can be considered an alternative. The thing with Soundcloud is that people can leave the paid-for service without actually taking their business elsewhere, they'll just lose access to certain features. But who cares about extra features when basic service is bolloxed. The site really needs to focus on delivering value for those premium accounts, otherwise it won't last long. I can live with crap-ass quite well when it's free, but I expect some quality of service in order to pay for it.