> Given that Spotify is private, how would you know if Spotify is making money? How about Pandora Radio? They have about 80M users; is that a failure?

There are plenty of public reports of Spotify revenues and losses that show they're having trouble. Pandora has had continual losses and the stock isnt doing well either. There's only more drama coming with artists and studios demanding more money so it's a very tough market and isn't going as well as it might seem on the surface. User counts don't matter if the business can't sustain itself.

> What exactly is meant by Netflix not owning their delivery system?

Traditionally there were cable companies that owned the delivery infrastructure and studios that produced the content. Netflix is neither (although they're getting a little into the production business). They will continue to feel pressure from both sides as the traditional companies start to compete much more strongly with digital offerings. Regardless, if Netflix was actually producing all the content they have, they wouldnt be in business today.

My point in response to the GP reply is that subscriptions aren't easy. Netflix and Spotify were named but both have issues and arent clear winners. Leasing content doesn't show the true cost of that content and while it might work for audio/video resellers, it's not going to help all the major web content/news publishers.