I have no respect for the majority of the shitty companies out there in the artist space...the record companies making a fuckton off artists that dream of making it big and end up warping their art to fit what they say people want for example...but there could be some that are alright and are just doing a job. Tons of writers out there get paid up front for books that the publishing companies basically bet on, playing the long game, and they pay the bills for actually publishing them and pushing them to book stores and setting up signings and such. Hypothetically there might be some in the record industry that do the same...but these days, almost everyone's a crook.