The problem is that ebooks reside at the intersection of the free-wheeling, entrepreneurial, consumer-focused technology world and the traditionalist-dominated publishing world which is driven by relationships and deals; a cozy parrochial world where everybody knows everybody else.
We are looking at a classic insider vs outsider culture-clash conflict.
The traditionalists are playing defense, hunkering down to protect the old ways. They want to recast the new world in the shape of the old. A lot as if they were ancien regime aristocrats arriving in the americas and expecting the natives to treat them in the ways they are accustomed to just by showing up.
The traditionalists and the technophiles see the world in very different ways; where the latter see endless opportunity, the former see nothing but danger. One camp embraces risk, the other shuns it, preferably the comfortable certainty of olden days.
The consumers, however, are used to the rules of the tech world and, faced with a choice, are lining up with the techie rabble-rousers. Not much respect for their would-be rulers.
The result is starting to look a *lot* like a revolution with the conspiracy shaping up as a metaphorical stamp act. Concord beckons, methinks.
Time to seek an accomodation with the natives before it gets to Bunker Hill.