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I only have a limited opinion about this...
First - no book I cannot get a sample of will ever be purchased by me. Ever. And I buy a LOT of books. On my Kindle I better be able to get a sample, and if it's not I better be able to look at it either with Amazon's viewer or Googles. ESPECIALLY fiction. Non-fiction I often power through despite bad writing styles because the information is worth it. But fiction is meant to be pleasurable.
I would not agree that a sample should be a quarter of a book. I'd say for a long book at least two chapters and for a short one at least a chapter - introductions and forwards never counted as part of that.
Second - there is a 'public good' in having these texts all scanned and searchable. I don't mean previews here, but searchable. Google, whatever their morality, is doing a service in indexing all of this information and it should be. With genre fiction this isn't so strong an issue but with non-fiction and literary works (i.e. things you might be writing a paper about, etc.) it is vital. It's like having public libraries as far as I'm concerned, I'm not sure someone should have the option to 'opt out' if they are published. But I'll have to give it more thought.
If a writer doesn't want to be a part of it I certainly wouldn't support them as I'd perceive them as being antithetical to the public good.
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