Has the internet created more professional musicians?

Yesterday's meeting with Sellaband - which also included Sharon Osbourne's brother David Arden (who also represented James Brown) - threw up some interesting issues about how the Internet has turned the music industry back into a cottage industry - via the long tail issue. Being able to sell music, gigs and merchandise directly to fans - artists no longer face the sign to a label or sing in pubs and do a day job dilemma they may have faced in the past.

You might not "make it" but artists can feasible make a living selling their music and related merchandise full time - however while this is the theory I am not sure how this stands up in practice - and if is accurate we should have seen an accompanying rise in the absolute numbers of self-sustaining artists out there in the last five years or so.

Has the internet changed what it means to be an recording artist - the make it big or sink into obscurity proposition may have been replaced by a middle-way.