But the relative cost one would be willing to pay varies.
Would I pay a streaming service $10 a month for 10 tracks, that I can only listen to on their service, but which I get unlimited plays of so long as I subscribe to their service? Hell no.
Would I purchase an album of 10 songs, that are mine into perpetuity to listen to, make reasonable copies of, fair use of, etc, for $10? Yes.
Would I pay a streaming company for on demand access to a broad catalog of songs? Yes.
But note how my consumption and value varies.
The thing is, streaming services are, fundamentally, gainining 'per listen' value, and that model is reflected into how they're paying rightsholders. That is, the more I listen to a track, the more value it collects for the owner.
A purchasing model is how many purchases. Listens are not really correlated to that (at least, not to the price). That is, one user may listen to the purchased album 100 times, the other may listen to one song 100 times, and one user may listen to the album 1000 times. All paid the same, all generated the rightsholders the same.
As such, I think treating streaming as a storage medium would be...poorly thought out. Not least of all because at that point you could make a strong case that the streaming service should be paying every rightsholder for every subscriber; they are, after all, -storing- that music for the new subscriber; nevermind if the subscriber ever listens to it or not.
Would I pay a streaming service $10 a month for 10 tracks, that I can only listen to on their service, but which I get unlimited plays of so long as I subscribe to their service? Hell no.
Would I purchase an album of 10 songs, that are mine into perpetuity to listen to, make reasonable copies of, fair use of, etc, for $10? Yes.
Would I pay a streaming company for on demand access to a broad catalog of songs? Yes.
But note how my consumption and value varies.
The thing is, streaming services are, fundamentally, gainining 'per listen' value, and that model is reflected into how they're paying rightsholders. That is, the more I listen to a track, the more value it collects for the owner.
A purchasing model is how many purchases. Listens are not really correlated to that (at least, not to the price). That is, one user may listen to the purchased album 100 times, the other may listen to one song 100 times, and one user may listen to the album 1000 times. All paid the same, all generated the rightsholders the same.
As such, I think treating streaming as a storage medium would be...poorly thought out. Not least of all because at that point you could make a strong case that the streaming service should be paying every rightsholder for every subscriber; they are, after all, -storing- that music for the new subscriber; nevermind if the subscriber ever listens to it or not.