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

Here's a newbie question. Do most streamers allow you to listen to a specific radio station via url? 

Yes on Ifi zs.  A few hundreds of choices. Most plays up to 320kbps mp3 / AAC.  A handful of them play flac but you do not expect the same quality of streaming.  Played with some lags so some people actually think the radio station feature is not working. 

SNS hit it on the nose.... if it weren't for streaming many great artists could and would be missed if you hadn't subscribed to a streaming service. I've spent a lot of money on cds and vinyl and if it hadn't been for streaming, I would never know about many great singers. We spend money on streaming components to make it sound good once we realized what good artist are now available to listen too. That is the short and long of it.

For me, I like the convenience of local streaming. I have all my 3000 cd’s at my fingertips. Before would have cds strewn all over the place. It took the Aurender n200 for me to notice a difference between it and streaming from my Mac air. I had purchased all 3 Eversolo models, and a Hi Rose 130. None sounded any better than my Mac. Since I’m 70 I want the best I can willingly afford, so I step up to the Aurender N20 and that was an end game for me. If there ever was perfect sound the N20 does it for me. I’m at good enough.