1. Saying "actually cheaper" is not the point of the remark, it's just a secondary remark about the specific comparison case, the point is that populist and rel

1. Saying "actually cheaper" is not the point of the remark, it's just a secondary remark about the specific comparison case, the point is that populist and relatively crappy journalism has a comparable cost to to the consumer as high quality journalism. 2. Everyone knows that big book deals are edge cases. Why is he arguing the outliers. 3. He's answering the flowery anecdotal part of the essay as if it's a serious evidential point? I presume he doesn't ever use anecdotes in his writing? I hope not because all anecdotes by definition can be denied (i.e. what is truth? i.e. incompleteness theorem) 4. He valiantly tries to defend his position to a commentator on his blog who points out that this is about cost to the consumer and eventual failure of a model that treats the content like print on a fabric. He's pointing out the very same thing that PG is pointing out, that this is their strategic plan, and that is doomed. This is the part where the author's retort to PG's piece really crashes and burns.