CDs were over-inflated in pricing. They were cheaper to manufacture than cassettes yet they cost almost 2-to-1 in price points. The big companies were caught in a monopoly scheme to price fix. They negotiated out of court with the states that pursued the case.
On top of that, much of the money from the past 25 years came from re-selling the public “new” copies of the albums they already owned (whether it was the complete Beatles catalog on CD, throw out your old albums, don't you know? or the dance hits you owned on cassette).
That ship has sailed and won't be coming back.
When records came out (45 is celebrating 60 years this year), people adopted to a new format. Now we have 60 years of used product on the market (which also does not benefit the artists or the labels).
The industry never “served” so called alt-country artists anyway. Outside of Pacifica and other liberal commercial free radio, there wasn't much airplay of the genre. So you had to use alternative press to generate buzz. But it's always been required to actually play for audiences to make money and maybe to sell albums at shows.
Even the big box stores have been hesitant to carry artists that aren't signed to the major labels (Sony, Warner, etc).
Well, if you’re lucky enough to be collecting royalties on evergreen recordings, then you know records sales can pay the artist very well.