It all seems very indulgent in this day and age, doesn't it?
No. It feels wonderful for all the reasons that you describe towards the end of the post. We get so caught up here, sometimes, with individual responsibility and freedom that we forget this amazing thing that we have the capacity to do - co-operate in sync with each other. We see it in sports all the time, the sixth sense that players have so that they "know" where a team mate is going to be, even if that player is behind them, but it is even more apparent in music, where the musicians, and sometimes singers, are literally in tune with/tuned into each other.
Business models have their place, but they are not the be all and end all of what it is to be human. We do some things for no other reason than we can .. or because it is fun, it feels good, it is fulfilling.
It is worrying that our universities and other institutions have become so market-led ... what the business models require ... so short-sighted and akin to diminishing the gene pool and decreasing bio-diversity.
I am glad someone understood - optimization is a goal, but if completely achieved across all areas, we stop growing in total. That coordinated sync in sport, or the coming together of musicians like jazz, that is where the value is - collaboration in the unexpected, to solve "issues" in dynamic environments. It is what humans are great at, when the conditions allow. I just feel the conditions are encouraging for something else at the moment - at least at the mass level.