The whole "the laid off devs can start indie studios" thing is bullshit not just because money, but because the state of affairs for indie devs has never been worse in terms of being able to support yourself financially. Even many "successful" games on steam can rarely support even a single dev.

I saw the other day where Deck & Conn sits on on the chart of all steam games in terms of profit and it's surprisingly high up the list considering it isn't earning enough money to support just me for more than another month.

99% of the money on steam goes to the same handful of projects, few of which are indie.