The way I see it, "indie" has simply become shorthand for "alternative" in recent years (which was always a vague bit of branding in the first place, but that's another story). And perhaps it does have something to do with the term "alternative" losing some, if not much of it's meaning in the nineties? Who knows, but that may have something to do with it. Of course now the term "indie" has lost much of it's meaning as well. Personally, given the choice between the two I still prefer "alternative" to "indie", but then I guess I'm just old school that way.
