I always thought bands make their money on tour. live shows & merch; and the label makes more money from CD & song sells. I guess there is a new type of indie. Those that don't go on tour much and want money?
That was a different era in music. Technology has made it a lot easier to create and distribute music, so there is a lot more music out there, which means the value of the recording is less than it was prior to the 2000s. The Beatles were also an anomaly in the music industry; they were so popular they basically WERE the industry. Music today is much more of a long-tail market now that there's not a bottleneck in the recording and distribution functions.
This can't be all that new. I feel pretty sure that the group of bands who don't go on tour much, and still want money, is basically the same group as "bands who don't go on tour much".