[quaz3l]

Its actually more on the creative side. SoundCloud has such a low barrier to posting and acts more as a sort of Twitter or YouTube than a playlist maker. It allows culture to form around the community of SoundCloud, not just fans that you advertise directly.

[jmspring]

If that was their key differentiator, why did they need so many engineers especially in super expensive SF?

[quaz3l]

I think that was their biggest mistake. They grew too fast and took too much money before they had any clear way to make money. If it was ran as a sustainable business, maybe it would be around for the next 5 years.