&gt;<i>I still fail to see how you need 200 people to run a CRUD app that streams audio.</i><p>Have you used SoundCloud? SoundCloud is not a CRUD app. SoundCloud is a full blown social network. Just take a look at their GitHub page: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;soundcloud?utf8=%E2%9C%93&amp;query=+only%3Asources+" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;soundcloud?utf8=%E2%9C%93&amp;query=+only%3As...</a><p>I&#x27;m reminded of Roshi, their distributed&#x2F;crdt Redis solution, they open sourced (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;soundcloud&#x2F;roshi" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;soundcloud&#x2F;roshi</a>) a while back just to deal with problems of their scale. CRDTs and Distrubuted programming is not something they teach at coding bootcamps. You should really take a look at some of their developer talks and get a sense of their scaling pains before you assume that SoundCloud is built by 200 fresh-out-of bootcampers (Also, those 200 aren&#x27;t exclusively engineers, you need a sizable marketing&#x2F;community team to manage all that global talent on your platform).<p>Even a feed, where one user can publish to millions others, is non-trivial at scale. I think you are seriously underestimating the amount of work that goes into building something like SoundCloud.<p>Ignoring this - it doesn&#x27;t seem SC has ever been in the green so comparing to relatively simple models of DeviantArt or Craigslist doesn&#x27;t make sense. DeviantArt doesn&#x27;t have the target of the MPAA on its back. SoundCloud will never be as cheap as Craigslist to run.<p>Also, SoundCloud hasn&#x27;t been acquired - I&#x27;m not sure where you are getting this info. The same guys who ran the ship in its &quot;humble beginnings&quot; are running it now.