> People expecting that the content companies were going to just accept lower revenue forever and not eventually get back to cable pricing were fooling themselves

Well that sort of happened for the music industry. I think people thought the video industry would follow a similar path where a few providers offer very large catalogs and then pay the media owners per play.

Instead these media owners got greedy and every media producing company decided it also needed to be a streaming company. But further, they licensed the media out exclusively to single streaming companies.

I'm also certain nobody expected that bought digital media would simply evaporate due to licensing.

Don't get me wrong, if the music industry could get away with the same move they would. But there's simply a lot more music and the ecosystem is too well established.