Youtube is about user uploaded content, and without a content recognition system in place for video and audio and licensing in place with both the movie and music industry they would have been dead in the water, just like SoundCloud. What other revenue streams would they have that would have worked without that?

As the article mentions, SoundCloud eventually did reach an agreement with the music companies, showing that it didn't have to take 10 years, but took longer still than they expected.

So my theory is that the business model is not broken by design as you claim, but that SoundCloud got into the trouble it is now in by poor strategy and decision making.