[adventured]

It's not just the labels.

Most of the value in the music industry has gone to Apple and Spotify shareholders the last 20 years, not labels. There is at least $100-$150 billion in cumulative shareholder value sitting there from just that. Spotify is worth more than all the major labels combined.

The iPod doesn't exist without the music from the artists. Apple didn't share their hardware profits with artists, and they're not sharing any follow on value from the iPhone either (which was entirely made possible by the iPod).

People hate labels, they mostly love Apple and Spotify, so they largely get a pass on this. The real money in the music industry during the iPod era, was in the hardware.