Most indi games are shit, I'd say most games are shit. I've never bought a game from humble bundle that I would have purchased if it wasn't so cheap. Valve knows a ton about how to maximize total revenue. If they didn't capture the people who won't pay full price for games than most indi games would have way lower or almost no sales.

I refuse to buy games from some consumer unfriendly majors (sometimes I got to have and break down). The only games that cost more than $10 which I payed full price for were both indies. I probably only buy a AAA game for full price every other year.

Make a really great game and you can make a living, make mediocre games and you probably won't thrive, it's true in many creative professions. Toady One gets an envelope with a twenty dollar bill once a year, make about $40-50k and doesn't charge anyone, provides no customer service, doesn't play the steam game. Lots of different models to make a buck in the games business but if you want to make a lot of money you got to make a great game.