It's been going downhill since about 2014.
"But like some startups, it has struggled to turn its massive user base into meaningful revenue. As a "freemium" service, most people use the site without paying."
They couldn't have made that sound any less condescending.
I wonder what they've been doing all these years. Their Android app is slow as molasses (I used a crappy phone for the past two years, and now even my new-ish high end phone can't run it properly whether on eMMC or SD - so it wasn't the device but the program). Songs in playlist skip-play on some random trip-hop that was never selected. It uses massive amounts of data even though the entire playlist resides in the temp (SD card appdata), it goes nowhere and perpetually fills space as songs are played (which is why it's on the SD card). There's no reason for it to keep re-downloading temp files, and track comments shouldn't take much space either.
I can't report fraudulent accounts because it takes me to a page that doesn't exist. I have to flag users as "spam" and even then it doesn't properly block spambots. False "likes" suck for artistic integrity.
You cannot flag or re-tag tracks, so some artist decides to label their track "rock", only, it isn't.
Proper downloading or purchasing of artist tracks in a lossless format doesn't happen (Soundcloud has this bloat of data if you upload lossless, 128k with no volume control otherwise). If they had a option to buy tracks I would. I think Soundcloud wanted to be the social Bandcamp. Some artists refuse to use any other platform like Bandcamp (maybe mixcloud and some social analytics programs, but that's it) so I can't actually buy their music - so when Soundcloud dies, so does the music.
It's becoming the "dead mall" of music. Most of the artists are dirt broke, they've got some sand to rub out if they think they can use the "use the site without paying" scapegoat. It's more than that, they worded it as though people were stealing CD's in a retail store.