They existed because the majors would not distribute the music. What they built outlasted that problem.
The independent labels that carried soul, funk and later hip-hop were founded to solve an access problem, and ended up building infrastructure the majors could not replicate.
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The founding problem was distribution. Major labels for long periods would not sign or properly distribute this music, and radio was segregated in practice. Independents formed to press records and get them into shops and onto stations that would play them, which was a logistics problem before it was a creative one.
Proximity turned out to be the advantage. Small labels operating inside the communities they recorded knew which records were working locally, could move quickly, and could develop artists over several releases rather than dropping them after one. That is a structurally different relationship from a major’s.
House bands and in-house writing teams followed from the same economics. If you cannot afford to book expensive outside talent per project, you keep talent on staff, and the accumulated familiarity produces a recognisable label sound. The constraint generated the identity.
The exit problem was persistent. Independents that succeeded were frequently bought, distributed by or absorbed into majors, and control of the catalogue often left the founders’ hands. A great deal of the most valuable recorded music of the twentieth century changed ownership in deals struck from weak negotiating positions.
The model has not disappeared, it has changed shape. Distribution is now cheap and access is not the barrier it was, so the modern equivalents are built around a roster and a point of view rather than around pressing and shipping. The proximity advantage still holds.
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