Steel, I’m sorry. Maybe it’s up to me…it’s Friday evening after a hard week. But I really don’t understand what you want to say me with this article…
I understand Envato only cares about its employees
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Sure, so 99% of all companies do that. We are not employes of envato. And I have never heard from a company, who cares for their suppliers.
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Unfortunately, all our discussions are useless!
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Totally agree. It will nothing change.
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We are definitely not. Employes don’t pay VAT when they work for their employers, but we do. We are costumers to Envato just like other buyers, but Envato sells to us different product - a place to sell our music. This is a lie that this is a “community”, it is not. Envato sells, we buy
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Great ideas. Part of the explanation why Envato is such a slow in changes are the Envato infrastructure itself. Every move on one market affects other market. Because we are not Audiojungle only, we are Videohive, Themeforest, etc. I agree with you - Envato needs fresh vision of how things will go in a future.
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Thank you for your fantastic post It really is sobering when you read the perspective of a top quality author. I do have issues with your analysis of how Elements has performed since only a very small fraction of the author base is a contributor and so are not part of the additional monthly bonus, but that is another story.
What really frustrates me and that you have alluded to is the reduction in available quality of items and the continued approval of copied / template / low quality music. Surely the review team has now got to put a brake on the same old track being approved and be a lot stricter on quality. Even if that affects my items, it would encourage me to create something special for the market place but what we have right now is a real bargain basement that buyers cannot find specific items or inappropriate and tired tracks promoted.
I personally would make author acceptance really really tough since the forum is constantly populated by inexperienced musicians looking for rudimentary advice on their pre-approved items. The market is now cheap and that is sadly reflected in the design of this marketplace. What you have stated in your excellent summary of AudioJungle cannot go unnoticed and I really do hope that things will begin to change.
I have not uploaded anything now for about six weeks because I am not motivated enough to create anything and going non-exclusive with all the disadvantages is not worth the time to establish myself. Envato has had plenty of opportunity to work with authors but unfortunately there has been next to no consultation. I guess it takes the top authors to make a point for anything to be acknowledged here.
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Really nice to read here Now it takes only a little step, and AJ offers the Elements music for free. That’s a new fact to me, which is annoying me and shows, how desperate AJ is acting to hold the customers on that Elements.sheet.
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Wow, that’s desperate.
Fighting over $8…
The time it takes to write a message costs more
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[quote=“criskcracker, post:113, topic:353462”]
"This Corporate Ukulele Motivational”* shouldn’t be the name of any tune! "
I totally agree!!!
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Thank you @Stockwaves for sharing your thoughts! I think you really pinpoint the real issues very accurately. I hope @BenLeong sees your post and forward it to people who actually can do something about it moving forward.
Absolutely. As practiced on most sites that sell stock music, prominently visible playlists could easily help push the latest “hot sound” to the customers quickly, without the need to browse a library with so much outdated and inferior sounding tracks (tough love… but this is the truth compared to most other sites in 2021)
Playlists in different genres and sub genres with super high quality content would be very effective for both new and old customers. If these would be curated with top notch killer tracks, the general author pool would also be a lot more inspired to step up the game to possibly get into those playlists. How cool wouldn’t it be to instead of applying for the next AJ sale, authors could apply and try to get into both mainstream and niche playlists? Concentrate our energy on razor sharp quality and niche tracks instead of numbing uninspiring amounts of quantity tracks for the purpose of joining some senseless $5 lottery (at best).
Goodbye popular files, Hello playlists… Just imagine having best sellers in a dedicated section on the category pages for those who are interested, then rather have beautifully looking playlists covers where popular files are, or maybe even better, at the front page itself. Remove the highly irrelevant “best rated” (and best self rated) tracks that are the first customers see when they enter AJ. First impressions matter a lot. Visual presentation and unprofessional tag names matters a lot too.
To me the popular files on AJ looks like a 90´s stamp collection with weirdly cheap prices modified by some hacker kid… It’s easy to see the difference in professionalism and visual presentation when comparing to popular files on Videohive and Themeforest etc. It’s from another time zone it seems. Some decent graphic designer making playlists covers could really help AJ look much cooler and modern.
I listened yesterday to a lot of new tracks on AudioJungle which I haven’t really done in a while, and I must say I was underwhelmed by the quality on a lot of it. IMHO 50% of these tracks (and in some genres more) should not have been approved to my ears. I just don’t see what the purpose is with publishing so much “average at best” tracks with dated samples etc. Most customers with untrained ears might not hear what is wrong with these particular tracks, but they certainly can feel the difference when something sounds more professional and modern if they compare music available on other sites.
Anyways, apart from all the other obvious issues discussed a million times, I really struggle to understand why the market (and also Elements) is not more strongly curated when you have such a big pool of super talented authors that can be found here in the ocean of clutter and mess. Why not dramatically decrease upload limits and use reviewer work power to curate the existing market that customer are met with up to a professional 2021 level instead?
I don’t necessarily mean that every new published tracks needs to be in the quality of authors like Soundroll, Red Octopus or Bluefox Music etc, BUT they should not be light years away from this quality either. We all need to step up our game if we are going to have a chance in this super fierce competition moving forward.
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