Nothing new here, just a different level. You get big corps such as EA who were caught with their pants down, threatening game reviewing press with revoking access to early copies or special press events if they don't like the scores they're getting. That's a lot worse than trying to fish for comments on the internet.
I also remember recently not being able to walk into a shop without being assaulted with that "starships" garbage from Plastic Minaj, it was bombarded over the airwaves 40 times a day. Soundcloud plays/comments pushing third party websites are just another angle to that trend, scratch my back and I'll scratch yours.
I tried these a couple of times, one thing that irritated me more than anything else is having to comment on randoms "My first trap" or "banging dubstep" stuff that was obviously made in half an hour using either Justice or squealex synth packs and deadmaus drum packs, poorly composed, poorly produced, and obviously not much of a clue about sound production altogether. Sometimes it's out of key/sync/distorted etc, most hip hop I've heard there were made by someone with a 5$ mic and a laptop.
In pure music production terms, it's called polishing a turd. It only goes so far, because you can only go as far as where your real fanbase is. On the other hand there is nothing wrong with exposure, though I'm not sure if scoring condescending comments is a good thing. I'd rather have genuine feedback, and if something sounds wrong or out of place please let me know. I certainly do not want to dwell into, but also fool myself into making a turd while everyone else is faking my greatness. One example of that was a kid commenting over a 30 second teaser bit that I posted online: "Great, shame it isn't a longer finished track". Now how generic does that sound?
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