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

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 Toaster Mantis wrote:

For what it's worth, my explanations for the conundrum posed in the opening post are:

Metal has a much larger do-it-yourself/underground infrastructure of independent record labels, specialist stores and concert venues than progressive rock. It certainly established one earlier as a result of picking up that ethos from the punk movement in the late 1970s. Even if metal didn't take that attitude to anywhere the same length as punk did, I think both subcultures built up that kind of grassroots network in order to avoid having to compromise with the mainstream... which is a likely cause of how the psychedelic/progressive movement's decline happened. 
Though they have common roots and quite a bit of overlap, metal and prog are still different music cultures with different aims that also attract somewhat different audiences. In the words of one black metal musician I correspond with and who listens to quite a bit of avant/prog on the side, metal usually doesn't attempt to work as intellectual "art music" the same way a lot of prog/psych does (and when it does is in his optic less successful at)... as he puts it, being physical/spiritual in its appeal rather than cerebral. It might result in a lower bar to clear if you look at things from one perspective, but it does explain why the respective fanbases tend to appreciate music in different ways.
In my admittedly anecdotal experience, if one that's backed up with some of the sociological aspects of the genre histories I've read, both the musicians involved and the fans of metal are on average less academic and more working-class in their sociological background than the prog rock community. This is in return reflected in the different cultural norms. Kinda the same way as punk if not as overtly ideological about it, the contemporary metal scene functions as a sort of "modern folk music". Which is something you can't really say about progressive rock as a whole.

Does that make any sense? I've slept like four hours last night as a result of being at a basement concert with a handful of local punk/metal groups.

And let's not forget the debt owed to metal by the tattoo and body-piercing industries -- one must have both to enjoy the genre. Prog, unfortunately, did not aid the cape and codpiece industries in any appreciable way.