While I agree with a lot of the points that the author is making (especially #5 regarding major labels feeding into the "viral hits" hype), I feel like the author is discrediting a lot of musicians that actually care about the music they are making.

(Disclaimer: Purely anecdotal)

An example of a band I feel is highly underrated is Misterwives [1]. I've been following them since ~2015 and have listened to every album released, watched them live at a concert, and at a "live" pandemic virtual concert. And I think they are phenomenal, both, via headphones and live. And these are artists that spend a lot of time perfecting their art. And only recently are they seemingly getting more attention.

The point I am trying to make is that there are artists that work their asses off trying to get their art known, but since they aren't really "viral" content worthy, they don't seem to be picked by the "best" labels. And this is a trend I see a lot in artists from more specialized/niche/indie genres like alternative music, jazz, and instrumental/orchestral, compared to artists belonging to the more generic "pop" music genre.

[1]: Website doesn't work without JS enabled, but I highly recommend listening to their albums. https://www.misterwives.com/

He argues that the labels were a filter to filter out the bad music, and now that everyone can have ~free access to studio gear, there is more crap.

Somehow, though, these labels that are so good at filtering (according to him)... suddenly aren't? With a much larger source field to filter from?

The argument doesn't hold water or make any logical sense.

This whole thing, as far as I can tell, is a bitter "kids these days" rant that doesn't actually stand up to logical or factual scrutiny.