I can super agree to this, yeah.
The issue with Dave the Diver is that, yeah it's got this pure indie game aesthetic to it but was published by Nexon. Death Stranding is closer to an indie game than Dave the Diver.
There's a lot of these weird terms and definitions that no one can agree to anymore. Indie used to be small team, little to no financial backing, certain aesthetic, having a publisher is argued.
Like you were saying, we need better definitions for this now. Steel Wool who made that FNaF: Security Breach game is like, a weird middle ground between indie and AAA so a lot of people consider it AA, which is like, okay in a way it works.