What am I missing?

"Mass market" standards rarely meet the expectations of audiophiles-- the bulk of consumer electronics sold are cheap, essentially disposable, can tie into a phone or computer and CD is certainly better than MP.3 

I think you have to put all this into context -- when the record business was booming based on physical media sales, the big labels had money to advance to unknown bands to develop. The labels took the risk on a lot of artists that never made it in the hope that one would grab the gold ring and make up for these outlays.

When Napster first opened the door to file sharing, everybody was "Yeah, I don't wanna pay for a whole album. I just want one track." (Assuming that they were willing to pay for even that much). I don't lay the demise of the old industry structure entirely on the advent of file sharing-- there was heavy reliance on legacy acts, less A &R and more follow the trend than ever, but artists who did sell got paid through advances, whether or not they fully earned them back. 

Now we are at a point where the majors got gutted, pretty much like the major motion picture companies- no more back lots, no more in house studios and performance spaces-- simply distribution arms. The gate keeper is Big Data. Music is more commoditized than ever. And it almost always migrates downward to the lowest common denominator. 

At the same time, we are still enjoying a hi-fi renaissance in our little corner of the universe- more vinyl, turntables, tonearms, cartridges, etc. than ever. But, think about all the threads here now devoted to streaming--its easy, convenient and can sound pretty good. You are paying more for the gear and services that will do that, but its a small investment compared to what you'd wind up spending on physical media. 

It's also a no-win for the artists. Touring is costly, ticket prices are hard to justify and unless a song catches and gets used in a tv show or commercial, very few songwriters make big money these days. The supporting musicians make very little. Composing for film or TV can still be lucrative. I feel for the artists, try to support them in various ways, but the reality is, music isn't the kind of high priority purchase that it might have been in the '70s when a good stereo was part of the lifestyle. "Good enough" is usually fine. 

@clearthinker said: "No.  Not more than ever.  in the 50s 60s 70s everyone had a vinyl player and vinyl.  But certainly the most since CDs got embedded in the late 80s."

Of course you are correct. In absolute numbers the vinyl market today is niche. I guess my point was the potential customer seems to have far more options in the variety of tables, arms and cartridges than I remember from the '60s and '70s and in that sense, we have it good (albeit at a price). 

Thanks for the comment.

Bill

In the "product as service" vein, I called upon one of the vendors we use for hvac maintenance, etc. We need to replace one of the furnaces--here in Texas, we rely far more on the air conditioning than the heat, but that cold snap in 2021 gave us religion. Anyway, one company has a new business model option-- they lease you the furnace, maintain it and charge you a monthly fee. You don't own your furnace- they do. At the end of the term, well, that's another issue. And if you want to sell your house, do you say, oh, btw, the kitchen is rented, we don't really own it--you have to take over the payments if the "lease" is assignable. 

I won't go further on this but you can see the implications.