There needs to be a word that describes people who are doing what may be called “university quality” work while not actually being in an university. “Independent scholar” is too pretentious, I would prefer something that is closer to describing what a PhD student does, but without connection to any university. Most of the candidate labels out there are trying too hard to be anti-establishment.
In spite of everything, I think labels are important to communicate with others and to load and compress entire concepts appropriately in ones brain. Labels are also important to develop and maintain a self-identity.