...I'm on soundcloud, as are many of us here, but I'll admit that I use it primarily to post my own content and not to stream others.

I use SoundCloud for everything. I'm following an array of producers that have anywhere between 10 to 100,000 followers, while putting out my own content concurrently. Hell, you could even create several different profiles for various purposes. One for your solo production project, one for your procurement/consumption of others' music, and (an)other(s) where you collaborate with outside artists.

That said, how long would those songs stay only on TIDAL?

EXACTLY. There is no exclusivity, anymore. This is the Internet. Ever heard of "Audio Hijack"? It's a program that records anything being passed through my soundcard by way of my Internet browser, or any other program that I specify. I have built a YouTube channel on this concept, and I find myself constantly linking to the artist's SoundCloud page, because that's where the content initially originates from.

Apparently, because I am not a total idiot, I can use this tool tool (Audio Hijack) to capture 128 kbps audio from any source of realtime playback enabled audio files hosted on the entire Internet. And guess who will be disappointed with 128 kbps audio? Almost nobody. I wish I could tell you that I preferred higher bitrate audio to lower, but somewhere around ~200 kpbs, even expert audiophiles have to concede their humanity.

One thing I have to knock SoundCloud on is their exclusion of any grandfathering for accounts established years ago. Like, say, my account. I had payed my money to these guys for several years just to host my content, and even when I've had a "Pro" account, "Suggested/Promoted" tracks still positioned themselves at the top of my SoundCloud feed. My immediate reaction to SoundCloud's montetization wasn't favorable, but it's been a slow process with minimal invasions on my feed. Indeed, If they do it right, I think it could be successful, but I have no insight or metrics on the implementation.

All that said, SoundCloud is still a better utility when it comes to listening to a mix I'm working on vs. going through Apple's system. By way of Apple, it's either a hardline cord or the Apple Cloud, in which case I still prefer routing my bounce down through SoundCloud, for simplicity, granted that my mobile data plan isn't gasping for bandwidth.