That basically means the only viable solution left is no more digital music - live performances only.
Nonsense. Quote from
Similar to the announcement that ultimately led to the release of Ghosts I-IV, a post on the band's website in April 2008 read "2 weeks!"[73] On May 5, Nine Inch Nails released The Slip via their website without any advertisement or promotion.[74] The album was made available for download free of charge, protected under the same Creative Commons licence as Ghosts, and has seen individual downloads surpassing 1.4 million.[75] The Slip has since been released on CD as a limited edition set of 250,000.
And you know what? NIN made a profit. Period. Trent Reznor puts almost all his stuff up for download (gratis and with remix license) and you can buy collectors items. He makes a lot of money on the collectors items.
Your argument is wrong, plain and simply wrong.