I am way more optimistic for Adam than some of you - wow, what is it with all the doubt? There is no comparison to those who were just let go from labels without a plan on where to go from here, like other idols, who now do the small venue circuits and somehow live off of that (not sure how - but don't quite care enough to research how that works).
Adam first of all has multiple engagements even for 2013 that we already know about, that will provide decent income. And Glee, I presume will be for season 5 and 6. And he may have multiple irons in the fire beyond 2013, which we just do not know about yet. A few Queen concerts comes to mind, pretty pretty please, maybe.
On the other hand, he does have a management team, publicist + Kobolt + accountants/tax guys and his band to think about and pay. But Adam also has some basic revenue from product sales, licensing, use of pictures in magazines, fanclub, etc.
He also has at least some income coming in from FYE and even if TSP did not break even and he is not making anything from that, at least FYE is generating revenue for him in all the various ways. If that were his only income that might be worrisome, but clearly that is not the case.
So, all that added together, leaves him already in a completely different place.
Now, we come to what lies ahead. Adam clearly has befriended Neil and is way beyond the 'just playing guitar on one of my songs' stage. We do not know what they have discussed and agreed on, but Neil is about as seasoned a fox as it gets, and knows anybody and everybody in the business to help Adam connect with other people and Avicii is clearly a first result of this. I suspect that there will be more to come.
Neil is also a producer, has access to studio space (or has his own, not sure) and has access to other musicians, if they are needed for certain recordings. Adam also has contact to tons of other producers and musicians based on the past few years.
So, putting A3 together should be no problem, independent of whether he has a label or not. Then comes the promotion and marketing phase and that is where the rubber hits the road or lets say where things like a label start to matter. There is a huge difference between an independent artist just providing downloads of his song via i-tunes or some homegrown website and on the other hand, a label organizing a world wide release and distribution of someones music via major retailers with full blown promotion. Obviously Adam wants to be in the latter group, but there are many possible scenarios in the middle too.
And Adam will have to pick between the for him possible and available alternatives and he has quite a few people to give him advice and he also obviously has learned a lot during the last four years. He will work it out.
Now, to the other side of this whole question. You rightfully noticed that everybody and anybody seems to be starting labels. That is like starting businesses in general. Nine out of ten fail. A few get lucky and crawl along, kind of so-so. Very rarely do you get a breakout star originating from these start-ups, but of course it does happen.
Adam cannot waste his time with some completely green label that is developing its business skills as they go and has no standing in the industry. He is way beyond that, too, does not need to do it that way. On the other hand, that a few seasoned pros get together and start something to coordinate and streamline their efforts and then hang this under the umbrella of one of the big names like UMG, to tie into the distribution and promotion capabilities of that larger organization, is quite possible. I see Adam finding his place somewhere under an existing or re-forming label, but under the big umbrella of UMG. But I expect him to float independently for a while, til those things get worked out or decided. But I am totally not worried about his situation without RCA. He will have many options, and as you pointed out, many might not tie into the typical pop star/top40 type of singing career. He has songwriting credentials on various songs already and LMD will just add to that in visibility and cash flow.
And all this, is now discussed without even addressing that Adam could, if he wanted to, start a KS project any minute and raise tons of money within days. He does not need to do this right now, because the writing does not need to get financed, he can live off of the resources available to him otherwise. And his big financing questions come later during roll-out. Hope that brings a bit of perspective to his situation and makes a few folks forget about their worries a bit.
ETA: Nonotme, our posts crossed, but we clearly are agreeing here. Things are ok right now.