This is all true, but irrelevant to the article linked above, which is specifically about gig musicians in bands in the early 21st Century—long after the change

This is all true, but irrelevant to the article linked above, which is specifically about gig musicians in bands in the early 21st Century—long after the change you’re talking about. Bands are actually playing more live music today than they did back then, to help replace the revenue they used to get from recorded music.