Probably around 6 or 7 years ago (I think?) when I was in high school, I would go on SoundCloud all the time. I downloaded the free trial version of FL Studio and made electronic music in my basement that I uploaded to SoundCloud. Because it was a trial, you could do everything but save, so I had to make the entire song in one sitting over the span of a whole evening after school.
I'm not good at putting this into words, but I felt like I was a part of some thing, even if that sounds silly. There were so many people like me that I could find on SoundCloud and listen to what they made. I found a guy from the university I wanted to go to and messaged him about it and then told him I liked his music. A guy from my mom's work heard from her that I was using SoundCloud and he was on it too playing acoustic guitar. We would listen to each other's stuff when it came out. There were young producers from the UK who put out all sorts of awesome stuff without needing a record label or anything to go through. A few of them have gotten bigger now and I can't even find their old stuff any more, so of course it feels cool knowing that you listened to their stuff when they weren't "big".
I wish I had something moving to say at the end of this, but those memories are all I have.
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.
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.
Over the years, I've used Pandora, SomaFM (still do), Spotify and others as well as some iTunes and my own large collection.
What is actually lost with "SoundCloud's Musical Culture" and what percentage of the internet audio listeners does it impact?