Unfortunately, compensating the people who make the product that's sold, the musicians, has been a problem for streaming services, with Spotify copping severe criticism here.
In theory, providing artists with massive audiences worldwide should bump up musos' earnings. In practice though, the opposite is often true, with earnings per track being in the fractions of cents for artists.
Things weren't that rosy in the past for artists either, however.
"Record companies were dragged screaming into this streaming world. They did not want to go here because the old system that ensured that artists, unless they were mega stars, were never going to get paid, was finely tuned.
The way this is now structured offers a continuance of that disparity of return to the various parties. There is something a little rotten in all this," Grigg said.
Then there's how streaming services how we value music.
Simon Grigg again: "I hate the way it continues the devaluation of music - not fiscally so much but in the way that every song ever made is acquirable and the devalues the passion and love people used to have for their prized singles or albums.
Music has become ever more transitory than ever - a passing soundtrack that we never get to love," Grigg said.
My view is that the transition started many decades ago, when mass-produced recordings became available cheaply. The high-volume, low margin streaming music biz is simply a logical culmination of what was set in motion during the vinyl and CD era.
It's not all bad with streaming music services though, because who can be bothered to pirate songs these days when you can get any amount you want for a few bucks a month? Piracy used to be The Problem on the internet, with expensive lawyers fighting pitched court battles that ended up with million dollar judgements. That those are out of the way is fantastic.
Because the streaming music industry is so bizarre, and Spotify, despite many millions of paying subscribers generating a couple of billions in revenue is continuing to lose money, the music streaming company is trying to figure out how to go public somehow or the other
Spotify took on a billion US dollars in debt last year, and is now apparently thinking about issuing shares without raising capital.
It'll be interesting to see where that goes, but Grigg thinks despite all the uncertainty, Spotify will be with us for the next few years..
"Will Spotify survive? I think so. A profit can be constructed and deconstructed in many ways - ask profit sharing investors in multi-dollar movies who see no return - and the record companies are shareholders.
There is a reason there is a clamber and expectation for an IPO. Isn't the $1bn designed to take it to IPO?" he said.
Has the streaming music industry eaten itself? Looking at Spotify, the signs are that it has. What this might mean is that in not so distant a future, only companies that can afford to take a loss on streaming music will be able to offer such a service. That's the music business going the full circle, from earning billions globally, to becoming a loss leader to attract users.
