It’s kind of a relic of the past now since everyone uses a streaming service of some kind now but right at the end of physical media’s lifespan, Japan had some key advantages over the US specifically because it was legal to rent albums and I believe individual songs, just like a Blockbuster. Eventually they had the music purchasing equivalent of Redbox in the form of kiosks as well with the advent of recordable Net-MD minidiscs, which only really ever saw success in Japan.
It’s kind of a relic of the past now since everyone uses a streaming service of some kind now but right at the end of physical media’s lifespan, Japan had some key advantages over the US specifically because it was legal to rent albums and I believe individual songs, just like a Blockbuster. Eventually they had the music purchasing equivalent of Redbox in the form of kiosks as well with the advent of recordable Net-MD minidiscs, which only really ever saw success in Japan.