I'm more surprised that having seen Pearl Jam mentioned all over the place, I've never, to my knowledge, heard any of their music. The comparison to the Grateful Dead makes things clearer.

As for becoming a 'success' without the major labels, as a number of bands like Negativland have pointed out, you can make more money, from start to finish, by selling CDs out of your garage than most bands make with a recording contract. Columbia et al have been irrelevant from the word go as far as making money goes. The main thing they have to offer that artists want is exposure. Trouble is, a lot of the time that exposure requires adhering to some executive's idea of what will do well, with the result that some artists wind up playing widely popular music that they don't really care about.