> As long as you assume them to be profit seeking individuals and not some inconsistent model, then their choice leans far too heavily towards investing in their own infrastructure

How so? How does eliminating net neutrality give them incentive to improve their network? You've provided no support for this at all. (In which you have much in common with Pai!) if it were as simple as "more infrastructure equals more profit" then they'd already be building more infrastructure, neutrality rules or no.

> If they launch Verizon Music, then they'll have to build a service as good as Spotify (if not better) in order compete with Spotify

But that's the point: they wouldn't have to make a better service. All they'd have to do is throttle Spotify's traffic down to the point that their own service seems preferable. Or (more likely) just extract a toll from Spotify in exchange for not doing that.

>If they launch Verizon Music, then they'll have to build a service as good as Spotify (if not better) in order compete with Spotify.

Not really, they could just charge an additional $10/mo for users to access Spotify and people will start to choose Verizon Music since it is half the price, even though it is worse, which then bleeds Spotify dry.

> You're not thinking it clearly.

Your useful comment reads just as well without this. While you may think they're not thinking clearly, stating so is unlikely to convince them of your argument.

> If they launch Verizon Music, then they'll have to build a service as good as Spotify (if not better) in order compete with Spotify.

This is the problem though. What happens when they build Verizon Music and then charge people to use (or otherwise harm access to) Spotify?

They do not have a build a service as good as spotify. They just have to force spotify to be more expensive by rent seeking. They make money either way.