It's fascinating to think that sound recording was so new it had to be explained. People needed examples of what someone would record or play back and why.
Every new technology goes through a period like this.
1939 is when the greatly improved tubes having "octal" base connections began to take over.
There were different executives getting bonuses from the institutional device sales than there were for the consumer radios and the factories that made the vacuum tubes.
Along with the media (78 rpm records) that was distributed by their record company whether it was recorded by their own artists in their own studios or not, with the tubes themselves you got to "own" them physically when you bought replacements. But like the 78s and the original tubes in the radios, they were only licensed for personal use.
For jukebox use, office music, or if you just wanted to play a retail radio, or records on your own in a place like a restaurant, there was a whole 'nother layer of licensing to be satisfied for both the media and the tubes it was playing through.
Does per-seat licensing ring a bell? Nothing new about that.
I hear ya. I was more aiming at the idea that every new tech, no matter how transformative and later obvious, is not obvious nor even necessarily desirable to the population when it is introduced.
Tech needs explanation and even inducement to become popular, whereas useless tech like VR can't gain ground no matter how much it's demonstrated and hawked.
Every new technology goes through a period like this.