Why isn't prog as successful as metal as an indus

True, on Moon Records. I should have added that later the band became associate directors on Anthem Records in North America. Not owners, but with the same goal in mind: keep things in their own hands.

It's not as much that corporate suits turned to metal, as much as metal artists did more to start their own record labels, music magazines etcetera. Of course, part of that has been commodified and mass-marketized to some extent to the point that it's got its own "culture industry" that overlaps with that of the mainstream... but there are still plenty of underground metal record distributors and xerox-printed fanzines ran out of people's basements and garages.

The metal community were inclusive, and have birth to many fine labels that had fans supporting the labels just as well as the individual artists. The downside of such an environment, shared with many other scenes like rap, hip-hop etc. is that such a scene tends to support those that doesn't break boundaries and play it fairly safe. In the 80's, many metal albums came with stickers proudly stating that there were "no keyboards on this album" for instance, and the bands that pushed at the borders and were imaginative were more often than not the subject of some ridicule and snide remarks. At least that's what I recall from what took place a generation or so ago.

Metal has since grown, thankfully, when the scene expanded there was also room for bands more adventurous. But there's a reason for why there's something called "true metal"...

Metal came up with underground support, really.  I think some people tend to confuse the glam/arena side of metal, which was very mainstream, with extreme metal.  Glam metal actually went out of vogue a long time ago.  'Real' metal remains alive thanks to the strength of the underground network.  

Trends come and go, as simple as that. The wonderful thing is prog bands won't die as long as there are people willing to buy their albums. Well....in the free world at least. In socialist Argentina the scene is absolutely dead, hell, even rock bands have a rough time and the only bands that are still going are the big ones willing to sell themselves to the govt in order to participate in public shows for stolen money (and I'm refering to taxes...we lose more than 60% of our salary in order to pay mandatory tribute to the mighty queen). We cannot buy foreign music...or foreign anything BTW. Customs blocks everything.