You're glossing over the part where this approach brought their message into mainstream culture. If they took the money and dropped the message, sure. The history doesn't really support the narrative, though.
But the idea that they needed to stay with the Sony owned music label and not move to an independent one is kind of silly.
He just wouldn’t be a part of the zeitgeist in the same way. There’s an argument that a lot of what we’re experiencing now is a backlash against how well it worked. “the machine” is defending itself.
Can you imagine the president of the US using the term “Woke”, without RATM, and RATM without Sony behind them? They didn’t coin it obviously, but certainly gave it a huge boost.
It’s like a startup, the same product with a better distribution mechanic often wins.