One thing is driving this: the record companies. The fact is, if everybody wants to stream, all the time, then a company that exclusively does streaming, like Spotify, has no capital to operate on. Why does it pay so little to the artists? Because it's paying the labels. They take a big chunk. But if people get crazy with paying more than $7, or $10 a month, then you have no choice. To stay in the biz, you have to promote. Where do you get that money?
The future is simply that large companies with a lot of cash in other businesses will run streaming services as a way to get customers into the stream. A brief exclusive brings people in. (Not total, that would raise questions, and the artist's manager should be fired too.) But the sad fact is, you don't want to buy your music, .99c, or $1.29 a track? Then you get the stream. How does that pay for itself? Well, it exists in a very competitive market, and it better have a better advertising budget than just bitching about conspiracies. It's not a conspiracy, unless it's a way to get more money into the record labels. So Apple, Google, Amazon, companies that big, that make money in many other ways than music, can own lots of juke boxes. In your pocket. Not to make money there, but to be in your pocket.
