Labels do a lot more than release music. I am not signed to a traditional label anyway. Some of my masters are released through them, others are self released etc.

There are certain realities that will remain even in this space. The label offers me tours, marketing, manages advancing, covers costs and process for visas through trusted agents - to name a few of the services provided for their cut if they are a good label.

Some of this stuff is a lot more difficult than people think. I can't tell you how many artists get visas denied from countries because they werent advanced properly and ended up working illegally in the country thinking nothing of it when they were on vacation a decade ago.

The US is a prime example. People don't realize when they appear on a music lineup for a theme camp at Burning Man, the government considers it work even if they didn't get paid.

Immigration does a now super quick AI deep dive on you and those things pop up. Old twitter posts, YT videos the artist didn't even know were being taken posted by influencers who dropped their name in the description to get views etc.

Ultimately, a label is choice. If an artist wants to bootstrap, amazing. Go for it. The labels I work with are all either ditching web 2.0 models and garbage like Spotify or are being born in the nostr spacey people who have decades of connections and are tired of the industry the way it is.