[SteveEisenberg]

Obviously Johnson is looking at his own company's financials, and projecting.

Will publishing survive? Yes. Will publishing decline? Depends what you mean. In number of new titles available as eBooks, no. Financially, yes. Publishing that offers substantial advances has already declined. Publishing that turns a weak manuscript into an outstanding one? Hard to say, but, probably, yes to decline.

US publishing can't exactly die because of non-profit university presses backed by endowment money. Universities want their publishing arms to be self-supporting, but if that can't be, they won't generally let them die.

Also, there always will be self-publishing, and always will be vanity presses. It's a matter of defining your terms.