OP, for what it's worth, your post just inspired me to go make a donation to the EFF.
After OPP got shut down, both What and Waffles were stood up in a matter of days.
I was going to post the same, it had a very healthy community that was only rivaled by some very select/invite only alt.binaries on usenet--when Demonoid was strictly invite only it carried some of the weight, but my tastes in music changed dramatically around that time and I instead started to buy vinyl (2007?) in order to support a small niche sound since the music I was into was mainly artist/producer released.
It was supposed to re-lauch in '14 [0] but never did, but by then I had already a decent vinyl and mp3 collection because as I used to play around with DJing and had got to know lots of producers/artists on/offline; in short, it's a cold, hard and messy Industry but what's clear is that while producer led labels became a norm in that time and had lots of penetration, it suffered from the same issues that majors did in the end. White-label one offs and tests presses are a form of currency in dub-culture so it never went away, but it was a net loss monetarily speaking for most and really started to be seen as a business expense/marketing.
Producers were almost always also DJs or MCs (some were all 3!) and had to tour and link up with major artists or sponsors like RedBull, who built an academy for producers and covered lots of expenses for them to tour on special events and nights with specific clubs.
What Oink never really got right in my view because it was so early was the social aspect, a huge part of music-sharing was the commonality that we would run into those people who shared our tastes out at clubs/events. Even if it was a one off event it was still cool to put a name/face to the handle online who you share with and could relate with--that's the point of dubplates and test press. I've spent lots of time with my nose in a crate at random record shops in US/EU/UK and that feeling you get is unique and equally special as the music itself!
Cypherpunks/Bitcoiners were the first to actually try to do microtxs on Soundcloud [1] in order to monetize their work in an appreciating asset: hell, I got paid by a bitcoin whale (also a music lover) to try and spear-head this initiative when I told him about what music community I was a part of and even met with a few DJs from the UK coming to the US that month.
Sadly, it was way too early and most were in the middle of a tour so had to direct their attention to that and no one collected their funds, but overall seemed excited about the prospect of having a userbase serve as a patreaon of sorts on a platform they themselves could curate.
0: https://torrentfreak.com/busted-torrent-site-oink-prepares-i...
1: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/changetip-brings-bitcoin...
And the community - selective, passionate (again even snooty/elitist) and talkative.
I didn't know I liked atmospheric black metal until they showed me what it's about.
This comment just sums it up for me. You said it perfectly.
Nearly every bit of music added had multiple formats. It wasn’t just the big ones.
A request section that was super useful - due to how hard it was to seed on music torrent sites. (For waffles and what I was the only person two people invited that didn’t get banned for having a poor ratio.)
Lots of new music by new bands were uploaded by the bands so you got to find truly new music.
If you were an audiophile this was a must have site. Even tho people went on and on about “e**” (that was basically the name)