It's possibly ( I won't generalize there so I disagree ) bland and diluted now, but this was not always so. The death of radio and the rise of the CD are always my usual suspects for why any sort of musical monoculture failed.

"Basements, bookstores and independent venues" dooms the practitioners to being hobbyists.

>"Basements, bookstores and independent venues" dooms the practitioners to being hobbyists.

Do you prescribe this theory to hacker culture as well?

That's slightly different because hacker culture creates a public commons that practitioners can use to make money. It is not clear to what extent this actually happens.

Perhaps EDM works like how hacker culture works. I just don't know much about that . But for more traditional musicians it seems harder to... monetize the work. But this was probably always true - it was not uncommon for touring musicians in the radio era before TV to take on sponsors. The span in which people were sustained mainly by record sales was pretty brief.

Well, basement and bookstore rock is diluted and bland too though.

Plus, doomed to be relegated outside the mainstream culture, as a pastime for small circles of people with common taste (like polka lovers).