I read the article now. Where the author sees old vs. new, I see fads vs. the enduring musical legacy of some aging or dead artists.

^ you clearly don't understand how the music industry operates. For the most part record companies steal the product and give the artists a pittance.

RYM is a peer rated site and shows where the public's tastes are. Some of the top indie artists are doing quite well. You're really saying that because your friend hasn't made $$$ that nobody else has? LOL

I'm not saying Joe isn't a legend. I have several of his albums. I love his music. I'm saying that he's out of touch with the reality of the modern music business model and clearly doesn't expand his musical horizons from his clueless comments.

He's not wrong, particularly regarding the lack of money in digital sales. Most bands have to play live to make ends meet, but the amount of venues with live music has been shrinking for decades, which became more pronounced over the Plague Years.  And he's not talking about some obscure prog bands lurking on Bandcamp, but to music in general. Pop music requires 8 or 9 producers and about as many writing the songs by committee with formulaic preprogrammed sh*t dominating what's left of the commercial airwaves and pushed by the record industry. 

This same discussion is taking place over on the Hoffman site, and here's an interesting take by Rick Beato. And again, he's not at all wrong referring to music in general:

^ oh gawd. Old Joe obviously hasn't stepped out of his old school paradigm to see what lurks behind the magic curtain!

He's probably never even heard of prog hehe

True. 

I made a list on another site of great albums of 2021, I got to 109. That's a lot of good music(rock, metal and all sorts of prog). 

What an interesting debate. Beyond the terms of economics and the motives that drive record label owners to handle everything this way, we could say that we are in the "involution" stage, which is part of the nature of evolution. I firmly believe that the main reason is the limitation of creativity within the artistic world, that is, of the artists. The ingenuity of the human being is gradually being dwarfed by the use of technology and nearby screens. We are exchanging roles between reality and virtuality. Every artist that today is created and molded to the shape of the record label owners was put there by the choice of others. Music has been developing strings for years thanks to commerce, and this would obviously end in catastrophes. There comes a point where the writers of the basic songs that are successful today are asked for something different, and they are not able to deliver it. And, to further minimize what today predominates in the ears of the whole world is impossible, due to its gigantic smallness.

Another thing that may seem stupid but is not: people are waking up little by little. I don't know if it is a growing percentage, but the people who can become enlightened and manage to escape from that cloud of fantasies and power, spread it as much as they can. This is partly thanks to record labels releasing reissues and showing people the level that music can reach in the hands of good artists. If you ever sit down to listen to Mozart and get excited about a piece, how could you be so ignorant and masochistic to go back to listening to crass music? At some point this was going to get boring: it's been the same thing for years!