I think that that music startups just got confused about what their role was in the industry— most of them were in the business of music distribution (like a record shop or radio), not the discovery or development of artistic talent. I think they got a little overambitious in regards to what they were really capable of doing, which ended up frustrating and disappointing a lot of artists out there. (I know, I’m one of them.)

I’m with you on the need for music tech companies to get into artist development, though, since that model seems to be working with YouTube and Netflix right now. Pandora sort of got their foot in the door with their Pandora AMP program, but it’s still in its very early stages at this point. But the record industry is charging streaming services a crazy amount of royalties right now (something like 50–70% of Pandora/Spotify’s revenues go directly into royalties!) so they might have no choice but to do it just to survive.

We’re living in interesting times right now, either way. Something is going to change, for better or worse.