In a move that won't be music to everyone's ears, popular audio platform SoundCloud is to introduce ads to its service, as it launches a new subscription program for content creators.
Soon, US-based SoundCloud users will begin to hear "occasional" ads when using the service, with other countries set to experience the same thing down the line.
It's all due to the rollout of a new program called On SoundCloud, which will allow content creators to monetise their music.
The service consists of three tiers - Partner, Pro and Premier - that offer more features depending on how much you're willing to pay.
The sound of $ilence
The Premier tier is the one that will let creators make money via the adverts that the rest of us will soon be hearing.
The introduction of ads will mean the service remains free to general users, however SoundCloud told The New York Times that it plans to introduce a subscription service that will makes adds skippable. When we'll see that, however, remains unknown.
SoundCloud hasn't managed to monetise as successfully as Spotify, so we're hardly surprised by this latest news. And with Google's YouTube music service rumoured to be imminent, it's probably time that the big orange platform started to shake things up a bit.
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