The whole things was a technical example of moral hazard, and, if you believe moral hazard is wrong, an actual cultural failure. Using a business model that wa

The whole things was a technical example of moral hazard, and, if you believe moral hazard is wrong, an actual cultural failure. Using a business model that wasn't self-sufficient - whether VC money, or loss-leader money, or similar - meant that easy streaming stoked a demand and a sense of entitlement in the consumer. Then later, that sense of demand was used as justification to say "Welp, I guess the genie is out of the bottle" and then ask for songwriting organizations to agree to shit fees. Moral hazard - a risky action was took, when the actual risk was borne by those (the songwriters) other than the people taking the action (Spotify etc). It's unethical. Saying so is not a failure to accept reality, of course it happened, but it doesn't make it any more ethical. It was a cultural failure and there's a huge counterfactual that is out there that people cannot easily accept - the large amounts of quality, life-changing music that went unwritten.