I agree that there's value in his explicit statement rather than the implicit "you're killing our authors!" propaganda.
Interestingly, Cory Doctorow recently touched on this
same idea pointing out that hardcovers are more expensive than paperbacks not for any materials cost reason but because people are willing to pay extra to get them sooner. The publishers are currently searching along the demand curve for the most profitable spot. Hopefully that spot will end up in a place we can all appreciate (whatever it may be).
Thanks for the interesting link!