SoundCloud’s problems have gone as viral as a SoundCloud hit. Earlier this month, the popular streaming service announced it was laying off 40 percent of its workforce, and a report claimed the Berlin-based company only had enough money to survive another few months. So loud was the uproar that Chance the Rapper, who has never forgotten his “SoundCloud rapper” roots, was moved to reassure his almost 5 million Twitter followers that he’d had a “fruitful call” with SoundCloud co-founder Alex Ljung, and the service was “here to stay.” How Chance could be so sure was left unclear; SoundCloud has declined to comment.

The mainstream interest in SoundCloud’s balance sheet is new, but the tension at the core of its business is not. Launched in 2008, SoundCloud caught on as a free “YouTube for audio” where under-the-radar artists could easily share their music. At the time, MySpace, which had previously filled a similar role, was giving way to Facebook. Spotify hadn’t yet arrived in America. SoundCloud stood out anyway, as a lawless platform where DJs could share their mixes without concerns of copyright takedowns. The site began raising millions in high-profile investments based on the potential hugeness of its market. But by accepting all that money, SoundCloud’s founders may have sealed its fate: It wouldn’t be enough to serve a small but passionate community anymore. To justify a $700 million valuation, the company would have to grow much bigger—a challenge Ljung seemed to embrace. Eventually SoundCloud would have to take on Spotify.

That wouldn’t be easy—particularly considering the major labels own part of Spotify—and it may well turn out to be impossible. The clash between cultivating SoundCloud’s fervent early adopters and courting a monetizable mass audience first reared its head in late 2012, when SoundCloud introduced a “repost” feature that was easily abused by opportunistic artists and music blogs. A couple of years later, the company faced outcry from artists who said their music was wrongly taken down. Throughout this same time frame, SoundCloud was gradually going legit, negotiating deals with the major labels and allowing at least a select few artists to earn money from ads. But SoundCloud also had reason to hope it wouldn’t have to do all this maturing on its own, with Twitter briefly considering an acquisition in 2014. That didn’t happen. Unfortunately for SoundCloud, such near-misses have become a wearingly familiar refrain.

SoundCloud’s essential paradox jolted back into focus last year. Early in 2016, right after sewing up all its label deals, the company at last rolled out a paid subscription streaming service, SoundCloud Go. But in the months that followed, Apple and Spotify each teamed up with Dubset, a startup that allowed these services to legally offer the types of gray-market remixes and DJ sets that had once been SoundCloud’s calling card. Whether all of SoundCloud’s monetization efforts were paying off was increasingly open to question, anyway. Still uninterested in an outright sale, Twitter invested in SoundCloud last June—a deal that valued the service for the same amount as two years earlier, suggesting the company’s financial stagnation. In September, word spread that Spotify was considering buying SoundCloud, but by December the Swedish streaming giant also appeared to have lost interest. SoundCloud, it seemed, was stuck.

This year, the risks inherent in SoundCloud’s shift away from its base quickly became inescapable. It has been public knowledge since early January that SoundCloud might not get through 2017 without having to raise more cash. To fill that looming shortfall, the company went on the prowl for new investors, but in March it had to settle for a new line of credit instead. Even before the recent layoffs, SoundCloud’s executive suite was starting to resemble a revolving door. The rest is just math. In 2015, the company was losing about $6 million a month, after taxes. At that rate, the $20 million in savings from its recent round of layoffs and office closures would carry it only a few extra months.