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Originally Posted by rlauzon
We don't need a commercial entity to review books - as a matter of fact, I would not trust such an entity to provide accurate reviews. The only good reviews come from other readers.
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Perhaps. Maybe if you distribute the work far enough across multiple volunteers, the slush pile will get read, rated, and reviewed, and the gems will rise to the top. Meanwhile, access to the work has been so broad that there's really no good reason for anyone to pay for a copy of the book by the time the reviews are written. (You might be able to get volunteers to read the slush pile while it's free, but I seriously doubt many readers would be willing to pay for the privilige. And while Baen uses volunteers to help sort the slushpile, ultimately books are read by a paid editor before the author is offered a contract, and the book changes form between the time it is pulled from the slushpile and the time it is published.)
Which means that if the authors who write the books are to be compensated at all for their work, a completely different model would need to be used, e.g. an honor system in which readers pay what they think the book is worth after reading, or an advertising system in which ads are embedded into the book. (These aren't meant as the only two possible models, just two examples.) Perhaps this is where publishing will eventually go, but I don't think it's the next step from where we are now. Nor do I see either of these as a great improvement for either readers or writers from the current system. Your opinion is no doubt different. I think this is an area where we will not agree.