Arguably the indie scene is bigger than it’s ever been. I think the issue is more that, like social media, streaming music services like Spotify and YouTube keep everyone in their bubble. Even if you try to break out the algorithm pulls you back in.

Radio was a much different paradigm that had to respond to changing desires or risk losing revenue and going out of business. So it had to react to listener desires with much more finite resources and that led to (I think) larger cultural shifts within music than we see now.