I think the last paragraph of the article was my favourite:
Quote:
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At the moment, those people are obsessed with how they read books—whether it’s on a Kindle or an iPad or on printed pages. This conversation, though important, takes place in the shallows and misses the deeper currents that, in the digital age, are pushing American culture under the control of ever fewer and more powerful corporations. Bezos is right: gatekeepers are inherently élitist, and some of them have been weakened, in no small part, because of their complacency and short-term thinking. But gatekeepers are also barriers against the complete commercialization of ideas, allowing new talent the time to develop and learn to tell difficult truths. When the last gatekeeper but one is gone, will Amazon care whether a book is any good?
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The traditional publishers have been the driving force behind commercializing ideas and wringing any life or creativity or originality out of a work for the most part. Pretending that traditional publishers are some kind of noble defenders of true literature and art is bizarre.
It's too bad that Amazon doesn't give people a way to tell if the content of a book is any good, some sort of rating or public review process maybe?