Historically, publishers provided at least two valuable services: distribution and marketing. They captured the value they were providing by "taxing" distribut

Historically, publishers provided at least two valuable services: distribution and marketing. They captured the value they were providing by "taxing" distribution (i.e., adding a profit margin for themselves). ebooks make distribution cheap and easy making publishers unecessary in that role. Marketing is still valuable, but publishers never directly charged for that (as far as I know), hence their dilemma.