Music labels are in the business of cultural relevancy, a label does not make money if they're not relevant, certainly Warner, UMG, Sony etc. wouldn't be genera

Music labels are in the business of cultural relevancy, a label does not make money if they're not relevant, certainly Warner, UMG, Sony etc. wouldn't be generating multi-billions of revenue each year if they were not relevant. I have a point, I am not being pedantic. The message of your post, or at least, the message I took away from your post, was that the tides are turning against labels and independent musicians are the future... ...but that's been the claim made for at least the last decade, and it's proven again and again to be untrue. Yes, independent artists can reach huge levels of success without a label, and certainly it's becoming easier and easier to achieve success without a label, however, that doesn't have any logical through line to music labels becoming irrelevant. Artists like Macklemore are great examples of independent artists who reached great success but still chose to work with labels, because labels provide value. Likewise, there are many successful independent artists who sign with major labels, even some of the artists people pointed to as independent examples in this thread have gone on to sign with labels. I will happily make a bet with you, and you can choose the metric: in 5 years, major record labels will be doing better than they are today. My metric of choice would be total revenue as measured by the IFPI, but I'm open to other metrics if you think total revenue as measured by the IFPI isn't a fair representation. Although I don't work in the music industry, I have participated in this discussion many times over the years, including conversations with major label artists. Historically, record labels were gatekeepers and it's fantastic to see the shifts in consumer habits that have enabled independent artists to succeed, I would not dispute that for one second, and I will happily celebrate it alongside you, but the last decade has disproven the anti-label thesis again and again. Labels and independents will co-exist, they will grow together. If your comment was focused entirely on the success of independents, I wouldn't have had anything to say. I would have just given an upvote, because I agree wholeheartedly.