Earlier quoted context omitted.
Spotify's power comes from more than its ubiquity. Pop music, the kind that charts (and the only kind labels care about), is way more commodified than TV shows. If Sony were to make a streaming service with just their music and leave Spotify/Apple Music/Amazon/etc, their artists would simply fail to chart ever again. The advantage of a single streaming service with all the songs is also much greater than one with all…
I also lack the vision to see what could ultimately replace streaming as the primary delivery mechanism for music. It delivers an ongoing revenue stream, the monthly nature of which beats the old "put it out in a new format every few years so everyone has to rebuy everything" in terms of cash flow, although obviously not in overall revenue. I could definitely see streaming wars in music happening like they are in vid…
The idea was to create a true streaming service in term of UX. All the same features as you are used to, except you start with the empty catalog and you purchase individual albums and you get the streaming service for free forever (no subscription). The service operating cost being funded by newer purchase. That's why I'm talking about Steam as the model, it's how they operate: you have access to your library forever even if you only pay for games once. (And mostly, you never play much to most of your purchases).
The steady income of subscription service is nice for the streaming platform but it's not nice for the classical music artists: they receive nothing.