> The artists can just make music at home and bootstrap themselves, no investment needed.
The barrier has never been lower indeed, but it's the barrier to get started and it's still easily a many-thousand-dollars affair - a good recording and Soundcloud isn't everything you need to make money, especially not on a scale you'll be able to make a living from. Production of physical media (especially currently en vogue vinyls) is expensive plus there is a very real "inventory risk" (aka, the risk of being stuck with a truckload of vinyls no one wants to buy). Events and concerts are expensive AF to set up if you want more than your local community center or pub, touring is even harder to pull off (and the bigger the venue the more expensive the upfront, non-refundable costs go).
Most small cover and indie bands barely make ends meet, most work full-time jobs to finance their band hobby and spend sometimes their entire weekends and vacation time because they have to do lighting, rigging and sound system setup themselves wherever they get a gig. And corona has raided everyone's funds dry.
Not to say big studios aren't a bunch of unscrupulous, exploitative vipers because they are, but unfortunately their business model is far from dead.
(Source: know people still in this business, did myself a stint as a stagehand and as a renter of my small scale sound/light setup a couple years ago)
