Missing In Action

aka the gradual enshittification of Mixcloud

This started out as a quick note about some of the shows we've uploaded on the Funkdub Mixcloud page, a couple of which you can't listen to anymore. But it got a bit out of control, so it's ended up as my first post on substack, (I have another one half written, but that will have to wait!)

The first thing to say is that Mixcloud was, and in many ways still is, a pretty great platform. We've been on there since very near to the start, as fans at the outset, in 2008 when it started Funkdub was a mere stripling too, and we hardly ever recorded mixes. It was UK based and designed specifically for hosting DJ sets, with many great shows hosted there, and a platform that encouraged engagement and mutual support.

For a long time the only show that appeared on our own page was a Beastie Boys mix that 3DJ had recorded - inspired by a lounge set they played part way through a live show. He gathered together some of the best of their instrumental slow jams and put them together in a unique selection. That was uploaded nearly 12 years ago, and for over a decade it remained on the platform without complaint - we're not a huge page, so it didn't have a monster play count, but it was consistently enjoyed and the Beastie Boys, (or their lawyers), certainly never had a problem with it.

For about 13 or 14 years Mixcloud was effectively an open forum, DJs could upload any mix they liked, any style, any length. If you wanted to put out a 3 hour session of deep cut nose flute tracks, or 30 minutes of unlistenable industrial noise then you were free to do it. There were guidelines, but in reality it was a playground for anyone who liked to put together DJ sets. The playground grew, and it grew because lots of independent DJs were putting all sorts of sessions on there, and because they wanted people to listen, they'd promote their own shows and promote the platform. A culture was built - DJs would promote one another's shows, host guest sessions, comment on and share each other's mixes - a rising tide would raise all the boats. There were and are a lot of well known producers and DJs on there, but the rise of the platform was built on the backs of the efforts of thousands of smaller creatives who are both creators and audience.

A few years ago the open forum and the free exchange began to stop. Part of this was, in my view, entirely legitimate - Mixcloud is a business and it's entitled to make money - hosting a platform with some pretty great features is no small feat. And whilst on one level the growth of the platform was built on the labour of all those small DJs, the free lunches couldn’t last forever - less than 20 years ago a DJ mix would cost £12 on a CD, so if you’re hosting all of that for free a ferryman does have to get a shilling. So the introduction of show limits for DJs wasn't unfair, the service has to be paid for. It was a shame, but to their credit when they did it the owners came out and actively explained why they’d done it and engaged with a lot of people directly - we took out a pro subscription for a while, cancelled it, and now we've subscribed again. Paying a reasonable price for a service is difficult to complain about - the freemium model was never going to fly forever.

What is less easy to justify is when, out of nowhere, they started blocking shows, apparently for copyright / licence reasons. A year or so ago shows that breached certain limits on the amount of tracks by one artist were shuttered - there was no warning this was happening, there was just a sweep. The sweep killed off thousands of shows. There were 14 years worth of the platform being a free space, and one of the favourite pastimes of any music fan is to put together a tribute mix. So in a flash a massive swathe of shows were blocked from the platform that had been listened too and enjoyed thousands, if not millions, of times. The DJs didn't know this was coming, well known talents like Bobafatt and Mixmaster Morris who'd been uploading hugely popular tribute mixes, had them taken away. Many of those shows were lost forever as they had no warning and they only existed in one place. The owners of the company were conspiciously silent when this change came in.

The justification in the small print for this mass take down was that copyright rules had to be enforced, because the aim was to keep the platform free and legal and to ensure that they could adhere to licensing agreements. This gets to the nub of the problem - and I can't say that I entirely blame Mixcloud for this - because once an enterprise reaches a certain size then the distorting profit motive makes a mess of the situation. Blocking tribute mixes doesn't help the artists who make the music. As Mixmaster Morris points out if he makes a tribute mix that's because he wants to highlight the music of an artist he really likes - and anyone who listens to that mix might go to a show, buy a record or explore more of it. It isn't the artists who are getting rewarded by the blocking of the shows, quite the opposite. That is not to say Mixcloud don't pay royalties, i'm sure they do - but no performer or writer is going to make a living from Mixcloud payments. The people who are looking to make money and whose interests need to be guarded are the "rights holders" i.e. the record companies, specifcally the "Big 3". The same record companies who made the grubby deal with Spotify that makes sure they get a good slice of the pie whilst millions of streams earn the makers of the music paltry sums.

This situation is an example of two things, firstly - enshittification - a term coined by Cory Doctorow in the nutshell this states that all platforms start really well but gradually become worse, particulary once they become larger and once the need to make money takes over. The fundamental silicon valley model is to attract users first, think about profit later and it results in a rotting from the inside pattern. Every. Single. Time. So is Mixcloud a bad platform now? No. Has it got as bad as Twitter? Definitely not. Is it demonstrably worse than it was in it's heyday? - Yes! If you want to read more about enshittification the recent Mcluhan lecture on the subject is well worth the time.

The second issue it points too is the fundamental collapse of the business model of the music industry - in so far as the deals that were struck when Spotify was created, (effectively to neutralise Napster and the various MP3 sharing sites that followed in it's wake) have crushed the whole model. In short the share holders of the giant corporations that control music don't care about new music or the eco system that supports it, they care about money, but little by little they are killing the support network and they're killing music, and may well have killed it already, we just don't fully realise that it has passed away. Ted Gioia is great writer on this subject, this post on the end of Pitch Fork is excellent and there is this one (paid) on the grotty business of copyright.

The net result is a couple of our mixes can't be heard in our tiny corner of Mixcloud, as a result of the particular enshittification of the that platform, as a part of the wider hollowing out of the whole model of the music industry by suits disguised in trainers chasing bottom lines to buy bigger yachts. 3DJ’s Beasties tribute is blocked, so is a Daft Punk tribute from a couple of years ago, and a High Contrast summer mix. I won't be surpised if the Dub Pistols x L'Entourloop show is next on the chopping block, notwithstanding that it only got slightly popular because the Dub Pistols themselves promoted it, and we know that L'Entourloop don't mind because they routinely send us their records to review. The value for the artist isn’t in the droplet of income that a mix with 1500 plays would provide. But the people who own the rights don't care about what's good for the artists or what's good for the whole eco system, they care about the balance sheets. That's why a tribute Mix by Robert Luis to the incredible MC and producer Ty is blocked on Mixcloud; nothwithstanding that Ty, who very sadly passed away during the Covid pandemic, was a regular artist on the "Tru Thoughts" label Robert Luis owns. Thanks to the rules, designed to safe guard the profits of the Major labels, fans of a much loved artist can no longer listen to an obituary tribute put together by the owner of the record label he recorded on! Enshittification pure and simple.

But the point isn't just that some mixes can't be heard any more - our mixes in particular are trifles, although if you add all of those trifles up then that’s an ocean of jelly, custard and sponge. The point is the silicon valley tech bros have made an absolute mess of things. On every single platform the story is the same - they’re good for a while, in Mixcloud’s case more than 10 years and it’s still better than most, but they gradually get worse and in the end we’re just spending time on these places that are only interested in extracting something from their users and have ceased to be the thing they started out as (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Google, any other you care to think of, none of them as good as they once were). The worst of it is, it didn't have to be that way. It still doesn't have to be that way. But what are we going to do about it?