My opinion on this as a self-publishing author and a long time fantasy genre reader.
I honestly think that ebooks will be the way of the future. 20-50 years from now it may even be illegal to print on paper. That bothers us, but our children and grandchildren won't know any different.
Publishers are going to change. They'll scream throughout the process, but they will change. A likely scenario is that publishers will become half-marketing firms that will find decent writers, edit them, produce their cover art, and promote them on thousands of different sites, handling the distribution and pricing wherever they're sold.
Indie writers (like myself) will flood the market. This is a bad thing in many ways as it will produce a glut of bad works (not mine of course)
After awhile, the bad ones will be buried under bad reviews and will no longer be taken seriously. Good writers will struggle to get the first few reviews, but as they do, more people will buy their books.
To be successful will no longer take years of beating down the doors of publishers and agents. Now it will take years of writing and creating works that are actually good (like mine)
Writers will succeed by paying attention to the market and writing books.
The reader will change as well. They will learn how to shop differently (as many of you have already) Readers will find groups with like-minded readers and will pay attention to reviews and samples of books.
The record industry and the publishing industry are screaming right now because their universes are drastically changing. The only ones that survive will be the ones that figure out how to embrace the change.