[jmreid]

It absolutely isn't hard to get music on Spotify. DistroKid (distrokid.com) is $20 a year to upload unlimited tracks to all the music services.

But, you're point about being able to upload "anything" to SoundCloud stands. It was a place for remixes, demo tracks, podcasts, etc. You aren't able to upload just anything to the music streaming services. (need album artwork, etc)

And your last paragraph is spot on. I'm surprised we didn't see them release their own mobile OS and phone /s