This reminds me of hearing Reed Hastings of netflix talking about starting the DVD mail-rental business as preparation for when streaming became technologically viable. They knew that internet delivery would eventually work, but to be the big first mover they needed to establish a customer base. As soon as broadband reached a level where streaming video is viable, they convert the customer base over to it. Likewise,…
Here it's important to remember that the only reason that worked for Netflix was because they could be a huge disruptor even before streaming. They IPO'd, and basically all but put Blockbuster out of business, years before they launched streaming.
Netflix could've never moved to streaming and still made a lot of people a lot of money and have been a successful business.
But if they'd been losing tons of money on DVDs, that 10 year wait between launch and streaming would've been much, much more interesting.