Well no, but it's been this way for a very large chunk of the time between the invention of the LP and the advent of streaming music. Historically unless you we

Well no, but it's been this way for a very large chunk of the time between the invention of the LP and the advent of streaming music. Historically unless you were in the tiny minority of gold/platinum artists album sales were not a major income stream. Even with non-independent labels it was common for album proceeds to reimburse the label for recording costs and fund advertising and touring. If you received a non-negligible amount of money from recording an album you've certainly already "made it".