The musicians don't want to be in control of getting their songs sold or booking performances. They want the "industry".
Where do you get these "data"? How many musicians do you know personally? I know quite a few, and none of them would touch an RIAA contract with a ten foot pole, despite labels courting them.
Face it, music is full of people who would be homeless and broke despite their talent
It's also full of people who are multimillionaires despite their lack of talent. If you're good, you'll get gigs.
The only one's that don't
You should have paid more attention in class, son.
You pretty much hit the nail on the head.
At a previous job of mine, I was having a conversation with the office manager (looks after office affairs like stationary etc the exciting stuff). Turns out he was a drummer in a band which had 'made it'. They had top 40 hits, toured internationally etc. He admitted that they made very little from each CD sale and that most of it went to the label and other entities. To offset this and make enough money to survive, you have to go on tours.
In the end, he gave up the band and took up his current job at the time since he made just as much money if not more as an office manager and he got to spend time with his family instead of spending 6+ months a year on tour. He said the whole inducstry was quite soul destroying since the ones making the money (the musicians) rarely got to see much of it.