It's also a tax break in the UK. An employee and the employer aren't taxed on the provision of food but would be taxed on a bonus, so you can offer what amounts to £x worth of free food per year rather than (or in addition to) a cash bonus.

The Beats streaming service will probably support merch and ticket purchases.

The journo's point wasn't about the pitch, the site itself or a "too cool for school" reaction from VW, it's about the band staring their own future in the face.

Blink-182 was a massively (far more so than VW) successful act, yet one of the members of the band is now hawking a web site instead of making music. It's an anecdote about the state of the industry and how that affects those currently caught in the machine.

[I can't imagine why he would even pitch to the artists in the first place; for an act of that size, that's the management, label and booking agent's territory.]

You nailed it.

He's still pretty successful- Angels and Airwaves gets plenty of radio play.

I think 'successful act' should be changed to 'profitable act'.

How do you define success in the music industry?

To me it means the following things: making a career out of playing music (even just for the short term), being profitable both for yourself and your label/team, being heard by a large amount of people (this includes touring and sales) and getting mainstream radio/tv play. And managing to make more than one record that gets at least a 50% positive critical response.