Hindsight is 20-20. The record labels have never had great foresight, otherwise they may now been offering concerts, ticketing, merchandise, and many non-music ways to make money. This one beats it all. Seymour Stein as quoted in the Globe and Mail:
Stein says the rot set in the music industry 60 years ago. “We blew it,” he says on the phone from his office in New York. “The first major music labels were all phonograph manufacturers, but by the time the Beatles came along, most companies were no longer involved in the hardware.
“Had we remained in control of the hardware,” he adds. “We wouldn’t be hurting as much as we are now. And the iPod would be ours.”