Their "9 plays to own" model with higher compensation for repeats sounds really interesting, although I wonder if the base level of .2 cents is still high enough that spamming enough can earn some money. On Soundcloud spamming is a major issue even without directly earning any money from it so I imagine this would just make it worse.
While I don't know for sure, I suspect that on Soundcloud I listen to part of multiple thousands of songs a month that I dislike and don't want to support. Some of these I don't want to spend money on but for a sufficiently low to me price I wouldn't care and some of which I actively want to not pay any amount for.
IMO first play should be free until you indicate that you like the song. There should also be a way to note that you have listened and don't want to play the song again (if there isn't... hopefully they have that already). However that would be easily defeated by the same artist posting the same or very similar content multiple times (and a block artist option wouldn't avoid the same artist posting under multiple accounts, which happens on Soundcloud). I think any manditory payment on the first listen is going to restrict the type of content that can appear on that platform and make it not the same kind of place as Soundcloud.
This is a problem in other content areas as well where money goes to those with the most appealing advertising almost independent of content quality. Well, it can be an major issue with anything people pay money for, but it is particularly unnecessary for easily copied content.
Also, they should really make sure that you can get a FLAC when you have fully paid not just a mp3. I would not use the service for this reason alone (unless they do actually do that and are just bad at describing it). The Bandcamp model works better for me, I just wish they had better discovery options.
I wish Soundcloud had a way for listeners to pay particular artists, first covering the Soundcloud fees and then the vast majority of the rest going to the artist.
While I don't know for sure, I suspect that on Soundcloud I listen to part of multiple thousands of songs a month that I dislike and don't want to support. Some of these I don't want to spend money on but for a sufficiently low to me price I wouldn't care and some of which I actively want to not pay any amount for.
IMO first play should be free until you indicate that you like the song. There should also be a way to note that you have listened and don't want to play the song again (if there isn't... hopefully they have that already). However that would be easily defeated by the same artist posting the same or very similar content multiple times (and a block artist option wouldn't avoid the same artist posting under multiple accounts, which happens on Soundcloud). I think any manditory payment on the first listen is going to restrict the type of content that can appear on that platform and make it not the same kind of place as Soundcloud.
This is a problem in other content areas as well where money goes to those with the most appealing advertising almost independent of content quality. Well, it can be an major issue with anything people pay money for, but it is particularly unnecessary for easily copied content.
Also, they should really make sure that you can get a FLAC when you have fully paid not just a mp3. I would not use the service for this reason alone (unless they do actually do that and are just bad at describing it). The Bandcamp model works better for me, I just wish they had better discovery options.
I wish Soundcloud had a way for listeners to pay particular artists, first covering the Soundcloud fees and then the vast majority of the rest going to the artist.