You can try to critique the culture of What.CD but the truth is that WCD did a better job at preserving music than a community with the express purpose of 'preserving or disseminating information' would have done.

The mindset cultivated seeders with the fear of getting kicked out if one was a bad peer / leech; ratios, bounties and freeleech items created a gamification for uploading material and seeding otherwise unpopular items for other users.