Markets for artistic works are unique in that the creators are often (usually) not primarily motivated by money. Everyone else in the business is, more or less

Markets for artistic works are unique in that the creators are often (usually) not primarily motivated by money. Everyone else in the business is, more or less (meaning many authors write as an avocation, while very few people would consider doing extend work of a tedious nature like editing for no money). With the rise of ebooks they are also subject to the wildly counter intuitive aspects of markets for digital goods. High fixed costs with near zero marginal cost, leading to a fat head, long tail market structure. Authors such as Stross who are commercially successful are in a highly elite group, so I tend to discount their concerns as being generalizable as a societal concern. Not to say that I don't empathize. Or envy:) It's unclear to me how the disruption of the publishing industry would affect the quality of published work. The services publishers provide, funding, editing, marketing, legal, are essential to the creation of good work. If there is no mechanics to pair such services with gifted authors, then it seems a certainty that the quality of published work will go down in the aggregate. But as far as I can tell, the profound change in publishing due to the changes in media itself has yet to shake out into a new stable structure.