I stopped liking soundcloud when I realized that 99.999999% of my followers are bots. I dont need a bunch of followers that mean nothing. I would rather have 0 than 100 fake followers.
I also realized that at my production rate, its cheaper to just use Distrokid and throw things out on iTunes than to hope for discovery on soundcloud. Now I just use sound cloud to distribute examples of hardware mods or how a piece of gear sounds. no more music...
If bot followers made you leave SoundCloud, why were you there in the first place? Does the number of followers you have change how you use the service?
> Does the number of followers you have change how you use the service?
Not the OP, but yes, of course. Most musicians want their music to connect to other people. If you had the opportunity to get on stage and play a show at a bar full of excited people or at one whose dancefloor contained only Roombas wandering aimlessly around, which one would you play at?
My point is that Soundcloud is a)disingenuous about fan engagement, and b) I would rather not even have the social aspect of it if it is fake. Posting on iTunes, I can actually have a shot at reaching people.
Also this is not a sour grapes because I have no fans sort of reaction. The point is that there is so much noise from the bots that I dont want to spend the effort to try and engage legitimate people. Lastly, I didnt quit soundcloud, I stopped using it for its initial purpose, and now use it for easily sharing audio in specific use cases. I just dont see it as a "social network". Its that for some people, but not for most people.
I am interested in what are the benefits of following people, since (by your definition) bots are following random people, there must be an incentive for it.
People pay for followers (bots). To make the bots look more organic rather than 10,000 bots only following the same handful of people that paid for followers, the bots will also follow random people.
I'm not sure how SoundCloud works but does following someone get you more of their data than you would get otherwise? If so, I would say the incentive is data collection.
I also realized that at my production rate, its cheaper to just use Distrokid and throw things out on iTunes than to hope for discovery on soundcloud. Now I just use sound cloud to distribute examples of hardware mods or how a piece of gear sounds. no more music...