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A very poor article. What dominates paper book sales? The same thing! The much derided "genre fiction", that's what. The author talks about people buying all of Dickens for three pounds, and then simply assumes that people are buying it, but not reading it. After all, if they read it, it would undermine the article's premise. Of course, you can get all of Dickens for free, but the author doesn't seem to recognize that you can get public domain books for free. If the author was aware of this, then she would instead have said something to effect of "Sure, they download them for free, but they don't read them." That's more plausible than saying "Sure, they spend three pounds for them, but they don't read them." That would be a more reasonable claim, but still lacking in evidence.
This article shows a real contempt for the reader, looking down on them for reading the "wrong" books. Those "future classics" just might not be classics. It's possible that they are a neglected treasure, but it is also possible that they just aren't that good. It is ironic that the author mentions Dickens, as Dickens was sneered for being popular with the unwashed masses.
I do think that you can go too far out of your way to avoid clichés. A lot of what gets derided as cliché is just how people speak, or is just the type of stories that people have told and enjoyed throughout history. You can attempt to break clichés, but you have to recognize that you might just break your story instead. In trying too much for original characters, you can create characters that readers simply won't recognize.
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