[stonetools]

Of course, those weren't all written for free, so your point may stand. My point is not "authors will write for free" (although I did say that, and many will) but "free-to-customers reading content is not going to destroy the literary world." The collapse of the publishing industry systems of the 1960s isn't going to mean the end of quality reading material, including quality nonfiction reading material.

Yup, you simply restated my point. The fact that nonfiction reading content is available on the Internet for free ( hopefully, from legal sources) doesn't mean that it was written for free or that it took no resources to produce it.

Your last sentence should be re-written "I hope that The collapse of the publishing industry systems of the 1960s isn't going to mean the end of quality reading material, including quality nonfiction reading material." FTFY.

Maybe they'll have patrons who pay them to produce specific types of content. This can create skewed content, but given the number and diversity of potential patrons, it's a lot less problematic than this system was a few hundred years ago, when patrons were all upper-class white men. Kickstarter's had some terrific projects.

So Kickstarter replaces the publishing industry? Seriously? Hope is not a plan.

Maybe we'll have a government arts endowment.

In today's political Environment? NO . Nuff said.

I know that (1) we're not going to run out of quality content to read while the publishing industry thrashes around looking for new business models and (2) enough people value quality writing, including nonfiction, that they will actively seek ways to reward authors for it.

We have people who want to pay, and people who want to write; the fact that the internet has changed the dynamics between them doesn't mean the destruction of quality nonfic writing.

Hope is a wonderful thing. Its got feathers and everything. Ain't a plan, though. People want any number of things that the market doesn't supply , because current market incentives don't foster the creation and distribution of such things.