The music industry is immensely inefficient; the value of a piece is independent of it's economic value. It's smaller than the porn industry [3], and the top earners are not too distant from it artistically. It's a tenth the size of Apple, though much of the money is concentrated on zero-sum executives lacking a moral compass[5]. My Bloody Valentine's Loveless, Pitchfork's best album of the 90's, never went gold, even in their home country [1]. It bankrupt a studio and broke up the band, and to this day is about 1/100th as popular as Drake albums on Spotify [2]. Still, there is a vast swarm of people for whom Loveless means the world, in a way Drake has never meant to anyone. It's a stoic, effervescent, and unmonetizable titan.
It would be fallacy to assert that the developed world is improving emotionally [6][7], and for many in it music is a mood-regulating sidekick, thereby providing added value where TV et al. provide replacement. It is a levee against the disgusting world neoliberalism and tech utopianism has built for us. Final thoughts:
* Never use the word 'consumer' non-ironically.
* Or write that "there are in fact multiple paradigms that exist within the music universe, all of which operate according to very different rules." Amongst a few other choice phrases.
* Or, in your profile bio, "Lover of Art, Poetry, Startups, Music, Journalism // Tech Founder and Deadpan Humorist".
* Walled-Garden doesn't exist on streaming services; your demented Grandma has recordings of her playing piano on her Soundcloud.
* Streaming does work... if only because nothing else does. And no, no one will tell you 'community'/'live' will work for artists who have enough integrity not to become a living meme.
[1]: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loveless_(album)#Certifications
[2]: look it up. There are a few reasons for this, including that MBV listeners probably skew towards torrenting, and that those who stream tend not to leave it on as background music.
[3]: nbcnews.com/business/business-news/things-are-looking-americas-porn-industry-n289431, statista.com/topics/1639/music/
[4]: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc.
[5]: celebritynetworth.com/richest-businessmen/ceos/lyor-cohen-net-worth/
[6]: monbiot.com/2014/10/14/falling-apart/
[7]: nytimes.com/2015/11/03/health/death-rates-rising-for-middle-aged-white-americans-study-finds.html