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

Not sure I mentioned this previously, but jitter minimization is key to best quality streaming, not sure there is any amount of jitter humans can't detect. This is where large measure of resources should be concentrated, relatively high levels of resolution/transparency can be attained with a large variety of equipment, clocking is key, this is where the best streaming equipment leaves the rest behind.

@mikelavigne  first post says it all.

And one can make setup simple or complex, spend a lot or not so much. You can get damn nice sound quality with lower expenditures, spending more gives marginal increases, and then one may get past this certain plateau of marginal increases to where sound quality goes into revelatory territory.

I have well over 3.5k physical cd media, around 3.5k vinyl and even with this relatively large collection streaming has so far much more to offer, I've found SO MUCH new wonderful music! I'd have to spend multiples of $10k on physical media to match whats in my streaming libraries. And I can play all this music in stream of consciousness mode, I love all genres of music and playing a particular track may bring to mind another completely unrelated track in totally different genre, its like my own personal radio station attuned directly to my mood, and this with SQ that competes with the best of best vinyl setups I've heard in over thirty years involvement with high end audio.

IME, there is no longer any reason to even start a physical media collection, just go straight to streaming, don't divide your expenditures over various sources, you'll get to great destination sooner than later with this focus.

Oh boy, more preaching from the biblical, oh forgot, measurement pulpit, you know, the place where all truths known, The heretics believe in things like ghosts and their senses, best not to trust your senses, you really aren't experiencing the things you think you're experiencing. Looks like I need to get out my  measurement bot to tag along with me at all times and tell me the 'real' truth.

Can't count the many times I've observed the oft repeated mantra of illogic that believes no further improvements available, and this applied to every single component in audio systems. And then these individuals open their minds to trying the things more experienced audiophiles suggest, shazam, new converts!

Funny thing is, I don't see individuals, at least within all the audiophile forums maintaining long term static setups. If one already had a setup that couldn't possibly be bettered, why would you change a single thing, and furthermore, why are you even involved in these forums. If I was as truly happy as these individuals profess to be I'd not be involved in any audiophile talk, just blissfully happy and ignorant in my little bubble. Seems some unncertainty here, just jump in, the waters fine!

I've built a number of systems over the years, I'm not an equipment churner, rather system builder, so the following pattern repeated itself over the years. A series of upgrades resulting in marginal gains until system was completed. I considered a system completed when only minor tweaks left. I considered new speakers or amp to be the beginning of new system. So this pattern repeats itself a number of times over period of over twenty years.

Each successive build relies upon knowledge gained from building past systems, so marginal gains also experienced from one system to next, this means each successive system better SQ than previous systems.

So we come to present system, same pattern followed with far more attention paid to streaming setup vs. prior system where I first incorporated streaming into setup. The vast majority of changes I've made over past five years with this system have been streaming related which has resulted in the usual pattern of marginal gains.  However with this system and more recent changes in streaming equipment there has been this breakthrough or surpassing of this certain plateau that has always existed for me with digital in general. The one purchase that took me over that plateau was my new custom build streamer with amazing LPS. Digital that now competes with the best vinyl setups I've heard in regard to ease, refinement, harmonic development was made possible by this single purchase. Certainly, all the marginal gains made by all the changes made prior made it possible, but the streamer made all the difference.

So, based on my experience obviously I'm going to judge streamer as the most important component in a streaming setup. Assuming one has a system capable of extracting max potential from a streamer, the streamer has become as important as amps and speakers  in my calculations.

@malibu457 In my estimation implementation of greatly improved ADC in recording studios was responsible for much of digital SQ improvement. For streaming , lossless services.

I've never had a single long term failure with streaming, user error has been occasional issue with custom path I've taken, Plug n play is pretty foolproof these days, needn't be reason for avoiding streaming.