Soundcloud and other music streaming services dont pay per play. The payment model is based on a pro-rata model, which means it has a huge number of factors such as country, type of account, marketshare and many more.
From 100k plays on Soundcloud you can possibly expect to make around $100 at best. But that is also if all those plays are monetizable plays.
Yes.
Google Music is scheduled to close down later this year around (September or October). Google Music has been an outstanding product, but it seems as though it hasn’t got as much traction as they wanted and they are merging it with YouTube Music and will put all their efforts behind the YouTube Music initiative.
Yes. RouteNote is completely free and allows any artists from anywhere in the world to upload as much music as they want to the worlds largest stores and streaming services.