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i think when you mention credibility you touch on a key factor : by using drm and other systems which lock consumers into a specific business model or out of their legitimately purchased content big corporations have lost a lot of the goodwill of the precise groups they need to survive : their customers (thus the lack of guilt for illicit copying displayed by so many). on the other hand, look at the respect and appreciation people unanimously express for baen ; baen's customers want them to succeed and therefore support them in whatever way they can. even *i* feel invested in their success, although i'm not really a science fiction reader, because i appreciate their business model and wish more publishers would adopt it.
actually i think that if the corporations are replaced by a multitude of smaller presses who are willing to listen to what their customers want everyone will end up winning. fictionwise is also a small company but they make a lot of efforts to maintain good customer relations, and people appreciate and respect that. granted they are not a publisher, and they've also just been bought by barnes and noble who is clearly not small in any way, but if they manage to preserve this philosophy they'll be well-placed to come out on top in years to come.
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