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I used to buy into the "gatekeeper" thing, or more specifically the idea that the quantity of self-published stuff means there's a "discovery problem". I don't think I do any more. As someone pointed out, there are millions of blogs and web pages in the world but I still manage to find ones that interest me and are worth following it. And the discovery process for books is pretty much what it's always been - recommendations, reviews, hearing about it. I haven't read that many self-published authors but that's mostly to do with my TBR and mostly adding books by authors I already know. Since they are mostly established names it'll take time for that to change.
But one of the main reasons I changed my mind over this is that while I do think publishers act as a gatekeeper in quality to some extent, they are not a route to discovery per se. I've never picked up a book because of the publisher. I couldn't tell you who put out my favourite books without checking.
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