Why are so many people spending so much money to build “perfect” streaming system?

when and what where the breakthroughs in digital sound? 2010? what technological breakthrough brought the most improvements?  i would like to see and incremental technological history on how we got here.  was it software i.e. recording techniques, and hardware DAC development and strides made in chip implementation?

i am also referring to recording decades old, back in the analog days...they sound so much better now either as digital playback or streamed. i would love to read a history of the last four decades of the parallel milestones in both the recording and playback chain. make for a good article for the big magazines and start from the 70’s. what where the breakthrough players and the pioneers behind them. step by step. chip design, implementation, PSU, development of architecture and approaches. a complete holistic survey of the last 50 years of digitals evolution.