Your complaints about Tower Records are misguided. They supported the music ecosystem, and were part of the solution—not causing problems. You forget that Tower Records was in the music business—the company sold records, it supported the music economy, it promoted new artists, it worked hard to grow demand for music among the general public. It only made money if the musicians and labels also made money. They all worked together in a common cause. This is in sharp contrast to Apple—which would give away music for free (or even take a loss, as it now does) in order to sell devices. Or consider Spotify, where the execs insist that they sell subscriptions, not music. So they take the money they squeeze out of musicians and do deals with Joe Rogan, etc. And it gets worse. Spotify actively switches listeners to AI-generated slop and fake artists in order to avoid paying royalties to artists. So your assumptions are just wrong. Tower Records was part of a healthy music ecosystem. As power and profits shift to Silicon Valley, this ecosystem is irremediably harmed.