It's true that "the Internet has nearly killed the prospect of making a living as an author". But maybe there are other ways to reward authors. My first career

It's true that "the Internet has nearly killed the prospect of making a living as an author". But maybe there are other ways to reward authors. My first career was doing academic science. As a grad student and postdoc, grants paid my salary. As a professor, universities mostly did. I never earned anything from stuff that I published. Indeed, I had to pay to have it published. But of course, it was publications that kept me employed. And got me grants. I don't know what that would look like for authors. But without an alternative, the publishing industry will demand police-state level DRM, and that would be horrible.