It's already looking like the old cable model because the consumer landscape can't sustain dozens of services.
Beyond the Big 4ish (Netflix, Apple, Prime, Disney), you start to get more and more niche. And just as in the old cable model, they are merging and customers end up subsidizing the niche services that become part of the Big 4.
Example - I used to watch the Flyers on NHL Live. I only watch one team - the Flyers. I do not watch other sports, ever. But somehow the NHL decided (or was bullied by the Canadian cable duopoly) to no longer offer NHL Live in Canada, and I'm now forced to subscribe to SN Now just to watch the Flyers. Except it's not just hockey - it's all sports, none of which I care about. And the cost is significantly more (though we've been grandfathered in for this year).
It is just another case of multi-billion dollar corporations finding ways to maintain their market dominance.
MS and Sony did the same with cloud gaming. There are reports that they pressured large developers to NOT make their games available on Stadia, most likely because they weren't ready themselves to compete in the cloud gaming space. Then, MS and Sony started consolidating the game publisher market by creating vertically integrated models. Now, Stadia is dead, MS and Sony continue on. There is also speculation that both MS and Sony themselves block certain large draw games from having cloud options because it would cannibalize sales of their own hardware divisions - certainly understandable, but it is again just another example of artificial scarcity in order to preserve hardware sales.
In the end, from what I understand, MS is actually losing money on XBOX sales because it sells at a slight loss - it's just the tool to get you locked in to their ecosystem. I suspect PS5 is the same.
Cloud gaming is 100% the future of gaming and consoles will no longer be necessary - but there are still many things to shake out in the industry before that happens.
Sorry for the rambling post.
Fascinating and frustrating times!