To play devil's advocate for a second. They do offer a bit more than just advertising. And that in itself is pretty important as well, even if you are actually good.
Record labels have a lot in common to VCs, sure you can bootstrap your company and do all the needed marketing and development yourself, go viral and scale without getting money from anyone. But for some companies taking money from VCs make sense, they wouldn't know what to do nor have enough resources to without help.
But I do agree with what you're trying to say. While record labels do more than just advertising. Everything they do is getting easier and easier to do without them. They're becoming irrelevant in many different fronts. I just don't believe they're 100% irrelevant... yet, but that only means there's room for startups to innovate.
Record labels have a lot in common to VCs, sure you can bootstrap your company and do all the needed marketing and development yourself, go viral and scale without getting money from anyone. But for some companies taking money from VCs make sense, they wouldn't know what to do nor have enough resources to without help.
But I do agree with what you're trying to say. While record labels do more than just advertising. Everything they do is getting easier and easier to do without them. They're becoming irrelevant in many different fronts. I just don't believe they're 100% irrelevant... yet, but that only means there's room for startups to innovate.