IMHO Apple doesn't really give a damn about MacOS. They are essentially a mobile hardware company that sells a boat load of "apps" and music for those devices.
IMHO Apple is doing the same thing with downloads. Ride that 30% margin as long as you can before ceding to streaming. Hopefully for their own sake it won't be to their own peril like iTunes was to the record companies.
Just a few random ramblings from the mind of a former Apple Kool-Aid drinker who still longs for the sweet taste every now and then...
Just a response to a few of your ramblings.
When folks say that Apple does not care about MacOS, do they realize they are talking about a company composed of humans who actually have to use MacOS every day for work? These are tech guys who work in and on MacOS everyday. If there is something they care about, MacOS might be the first and foremost thing. They CANNOT use Windows. So they have to use MacOS to get their real and hard work done.
I think the problem Apple has with streaming is that the current pricing by their competitors is unsustainable or at least appeared so. They relied on (A) not paying the artists very much and (B) not paying their employees very much because stock options would keep them around. Apple didn't want to compete with either of those things.
But now that iPhone is nearing 50% of the U.S. cell phone share. And data prices have dropped to allow streaming for more people. Maybe Apple thinks it can stream to a large enough audience that they can collect sufficient revenue for the artists, the employees and for its shareholders all out of a streaming service. Obviously no streaming service has come close to achieving all three of those feats at once and I'm pretty sure none of achieved any of those yet either.