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This is the one point I will disagree with you on. Maybe in certain genres starting with something else works, but most music is composed melody first. Actually, starting with a chord is still technically melody first. Great example being that the very basis of part-writing, and how harmony came to be understood today, is by playing multiple melodies at the same time. That's all a chord really is: Different melody lines moving homorhythmically. Pretty much everyone from Bach to John Williams started with a great theme or motif, and harmonized it from there. Not to plug my own shit, but I literally just posted a track for critique over in the Original Music forum before reading this. I started with all the melodies, and built from there. To my ears, it turned out cohesive. So I'd agree that building a piece of music is like building a house, but I'd disagree that the melody shouldn't be the foundation. EDIT: Points 7, 8, 12, and 20 are very, very good points.

You know what's really strange? I thought you hated that picture, but now it's your avatar. Anyway, I honestly think both are kinda crap now. Soundcloud was great before it got rid of embedded sharing into social media like Facebook, and groups. I cannot, for the life of me figure out why they thought getting rid of groups was a good idea. There is also the fact that it is plagued with bots, or people who feign interest in your tracks and page, only to unfollow and unlike you if they don't get a follow back almost immediately... YouTube is the superior platform in the sense that how you can present your music is a lot better. You can get great After Effects templates and all that jazz. The downside is that YouTube expands more rapidly than our own universe, and it's extremely difficult to bring in much of an audience. Worse still, is that in the last few years, Youtube has become a haven for SJWs and Neck-bearded, fedora-tipping "skeptics"; it's a political cesspool. But YouTube sides with SJWs, and as I've seen videos demonstrating, Youtube will demonetize your videos and make them harder to find even if you associate with someone who is known to disagree with their politics. Not sure if that applies to subscribers, but I doubt it. Back around 2010 - 2013, both Soundcloud and YouTube were absolutely amazing for sharing music. Both have fallen from grace, and nothing has really risen to the challenge of filling the void.

That's strange. How or why would the Soundcloud mobile version have a drop of quality that far down? Just something wrong in the coding that distresses the audio or something?

One major issue with Soundcloud is their mobile app. If you listened to your own music on the mobile app, the quality is horrible compared to the Soundcloud on your desktop or laptop. It fools you into believing that there is something wrong with the mastering. You will hear clicks and pops. Makes sharing your music over the aux at a party or friend's place humiliating. Especially if said friends are familiar with audio mastering. Youtube's mobile app does not suffer the same issue.