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Comment by ibnaks | Hacker News Reader

Can anyone honestly enlighten me as to why Spotify matters? I've used it once and never got past finding anything to listen to while on SoundCloud I was drawn in without even thinking about it and have nearly 60 songs that I wouldn't have found otherwise. Not trolling, I want to find what they offer since I hear about them in the news way more than SoundCloud.

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They have everything I want to listen to with very few exceptions and their Discover section is gold. I've found several of my recent favorite artists through Spotify. And being able to listen to any music, any time, is amazing. Soundcloud is mostly unknown artists and amateurs, and I feel like that's great if you're an artist and you need a dsitribution paltform, but that's too much crap to wade through for me.

Spotify is the best streaming option IMO. Absolutely great discovery with curated playlists.

See, I personally never understood SoundCloud … it’s completely opaque to me and I don’t understand how I would even begin to use it. I simply don’t get it.

But I also mostly use Spotify to listen to music I already know and sometimes get recommend stuff I like, but that’s not the primary function.

Maybe our music listening habits are just completely different? I don’t think there is anything wrong with Spotify or SoundCloud, I just think different people have different preferences.

SoundCloud (and MixCloud, not related) offers a lot of home-created content, but maybe more importantly, provide longer live and studio mix sessions by well known (and lesser known) DJs.

Ah, I suspected something like that. I think I’m just not into that scene, so that’s completely meaningless to me.

If you are into that it’s probably exactly right for you and something like Spotify would be a poor fit to your needs.

SoundCloud does an excellent job of finding "similar tracks" which autoplay after your current, and I often find myself in the same boat (or bookmarking a track because the related tracks are so good). Spotify comes from the other direction: You can play anything, as long as you know what it is, and the discovery (outside of "Discover Weekly") isn't as on-point or pushed onto you as strongly.

Beyonce doesn't release her songs on SoundCloud, but those who I listen to (or find myself listening to) on on SoundCloud aren't on Spotify.

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