In case you haven’t heard, one of the most prominent places for people to hear things may be dying. To give you some background, Soundcloud, the online audio sharing platform/rapper nexus that has bred many artists, both popular and otherwise, might be going through some major financial turbulence. According to a report from TechCrunch that contained inaccuracies, Soundcloud has just enough money to last until the end of the fourth quarter, which was said to begin in about 50 days, but is actually in around 80 days. Soundcloud co-founders Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahlforss pointed out these inaccuracies and said they will make it through the fourth quarter just fine, so get off their case, Dad.
However, Soundcloud did fire 40% of their employees last week, and will also close down their London and San Francisco offices in an effort to prevail. No matter what Soundcloud says, it sounds like something fishy is going on here. Many people are speculating the death of Soundcloud based on these drastic business maneuvers, including Chance The Rapper, who mysteriously tweeted that he’ll save the day.
I'm working on the SoundCloud thing
— Chance The Rapper (@chancetherapper) July 13, 2017
And today, Chance tweeted that whatever final countdown we were expecting is no longer an issue:
Just had a very fruitful call with Alex Ljung. @SoundCloud is here to stay.
— Chance The Rapper (@chancetherapper) July 14, 2017
It’s no secret that Soundcloud has been losing the streaming war with Spotify and Apple Music for some time, but I hope they can at least tread water. I’ve found some great artists on SC, so it’s comforting for me and my friends who use it. As of right now, it looks like artists don’t need to worry about backing up all their work. Yet.
Soundcloud was instrumental in propelling Chance to his current status, so it makes sense for him to reach out in their time of need. He also appears to be a nice fellow with a lot of love. Some would argue too much love. Not I, but some. It’s still unclear what exactly is going on with SC, and also whatever Chance did or talked with Ljung about is unclear, but it appears the fate of SC might be in the hands of a person named Chance. How do you feel about The Cloud (no one calls it this)? I would be sad to see it go, but a few of my pals wouldn’t mind if it collapsed so a better service could take over.