Breaking down distributor strangleholds sounds great, but if it is at the expense of killing off the production studios, its not so great.

Studio Rikka and Directions Inc., that produced Time of Eve seem to working on a "direct to stream" model, producing six shorter-then-television format episodes over the course of about a year, with Crunchyroll their American distribution partner. They also sold DVD singles of the episodes in Japan.

(They have also announced that they will release the series as a movie in Japanese theatres accompanied by a BlueRay release. So if the whole package does well enough for a second series, that is a "direct to stream/DVD-single, repackage as film for theatrical / Blue-Ray / DVD release" model.)

All English subs are available for free stream for the first season of Time of Eve (recommended), but I don't know whether there are European streaming rights restrictions. Part of Crunchyroll getting set up for all legit streaming was filtering streams by country of destination, which leads to constant complaints about specific series that are not available in specific countries.

I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.