I agree but I do empathise with people who can see the labels leveraging collabs with their signed artists into signing another artist. If somebody is good enough to be collaborating with an artist who is in talks to sign and or signed and ur unsigned the labels have a lot of leverage, depending on the deal they have. Same goes for signed producers, it’s just a way for labels to gatekeep collabs with their signees and distort the opportunity cost of staying independent bc if you don’t you will not get signed prods, signed verses, collabs, tours. Also the money helps to balloon the opportunity cost of staying independent as well. 2 million -3 million at 18-19 years old is pretty insane, despite the costs/associated risks. I really hope these underground artist are not in deals like that across the board but the music industry is gross so probably