mp3.com[1] predated Soundcloud by a decade, and was amazing both for listeners and for independent artists. They were paying artists royalties per-download/stream in 1999. The site shut down in 2003 and all the music was lost.[2] I still have music I downloaded from mp3.com that I have not been able to find anywhere else. This is why I still use and support P2P file sharing. After the 2003 experience with mp3.com it was obvious to me that using music streaming services was a bad idea.
[2] There was some kind of deal with Trusonic/GarageBand.com where artists were able to access their tracks uploaded to mp3.com and transfer them to GarageBand.com for about a year from 2004 to 2005. It is unclear how many people actually did the transfer (I had an mp3.com page for an electronic music project and was never notified about this). GarageBand.com in turn closed down in 2010, offering migration to iLike. iLike was acquired by MySpace and rolled into MySpace Music in 2012.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3.com#History
[2] There was some kind of deal with Trusonic/GarageBand.com where artists were able to access their tracks uploaded to mp3.com and transfer them to GarageBand.com for about a year from 2004 to 2005. It is unclear how many people actually did the transfer (I had an mp3.com page for an electronic music project and was never notified about this). GarageBand.com in turn closed down in 2010, offering migration to iLike. iLike was acquired by MySpace and rolled into MySpace Music in 2012.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GarageBand.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ILike