Why are so many people spending so much money to build “perfect” streaming system?

when and what where the breakthroughs in digital sound? 2010? what technological breakthrough brought the most improvements?  i would like to see and incremental technological history on how we got here.  was it software i.e. recording techniques, and hardware DAC development and strides made in chip implementation?

@edcyn agree sir. I just sometimes look around at my 5000 records and 5000 cds and wonder IF I could get along without MOST of it. Not ready to do it yet.

Even though I do a lot of streaming, it is NOT part of the argument that you have to give up any other format.  Like others have noted, I have many albums in my local collection that are not available on streaming and never will be -- for example, the ones that weren't commercially available releases. (I spent several years transferring a hundreds of LPs and open reels to digital.)

My system integrates my local collection and my Qobuz account seamlessly -- no problem to play one song or album from my local music and the next one from Qobuz. 

So, suggesting that going to online streaming requires one to discard your existing collection makes no more sense that saying back in the 1970s that you couldn't listen to FM or cassettes if you had a turntable.  If I like the music, I'll take it in any form I can get it.

“Another sticking point is that streaming is dependent on hardware & software that, in my experience, just seems to go bad every so often, often without warning. ”
@edcyn

You been around here long enough to know consumer grade laptops are not the best way to stream music. A modest investment in a dedicated streamer like Node will give much more robust streaming hardware and app interface. And no one is saying you need to ditch the physical media playback, if you choose to stream music :-)

@malibu457 In my estimation implementation of greatly improved ADC in recording studios was responsible for much of digital SQ improvement. For streaming , lossless services.

I've never had a single long term failure with streaming, user error has been occasional issue with custom path I've taken, Plug n play is pretty foolproof these days, needn't be reason for avoiding streaming.