There's a bit of irony in this story, if I'm viewing it accurately. The Pono Music Store was launched in the US and then sometime later in Canada with very little content available. Meanwhile, competitors selling online music in downloadable format were already at the trough selling lossless, high fidelity music in various formats. With the launch of the Pono Player and other similar players, those competitors were licking their chops and quite ready to compete head on with Pono Music for the listener's dollar.
With NY's model, an artist (or their respective agent) would sign licensing/distribution agreements directly with Pono that would ensure a fair compensation per download model. Meanwhile, his corporate competitors were unencumbered from such legal entanglements by virtue of existing distribution deals previously made thru labels, thereby allowing them to ramp up content quicker and even undercut Pono Music's offerings as their model was still based on a very low cost per download.
The irony? While NY was trying to stick it to the man, the man was sticking it to him. Don't worry, Neil is no stranger to irony and that LincVolt project is a perfect example - he developed the concept because he wanted to be able to tool around in a massive gas guzzler without feeling guilty about burning so much fossil fuel. I like Neil and all, but hey, if he's really concerned about the issues of pollution and energy conservation, maybe he should drive a Prius, Tesla or some such (Lord knows he can afford anything he wants in that regard).
FWIW, I bought the Pono Player on the initial Kickstarter campaign as I liked the concept in theory and I've enjoyed mine immensely since receiving it. The player's a little crude by today's technology standards in terms of user controls, but the sound is nothing short of superb thru headphones or the auxiliary input of your car's sound system. Thinking back, I never did buy any of my downloads from from Pono Music because they only had a few scant offerings in HD lossless formats at the time I received my Pono Player. While I don't mind spending $20 or more for something in this vein, I'm going to be pretty selective in what I choose and Pono didn't have anything that tickled my fancy. Even once they did, I could still find better value thru other retail channels I'd already opened accounts with as the artist-side "buy-in" to the Pono business model was plenty slow and fraught with challenges. The article presented in the OP is the formal "nail in the coffin" of the original business model IMO.
