The colours and text size you've chosen don't make your website very accessible to those with poor eyesight. I hope you will consider using better contrasting colours. Thanks for reading this...
 

Yes, I'm sure you've taken flack. If you want to be understood, drop the pretentious New World/New Economy jargon. It only obfuscates the points you are trying to make� for example, "are eviscerating many niche markets dependent on asymmetrical information". Every yutz with a highschool diploma thinks thinks he or she can write just as well as "insert famous writer here". Well, they can't. Look at the number of blogs that exist. There's a goodly number, but where is the quality? Warts and all, I'll pass on the poorly written blogs for someone who can do more than string sentances together. They are too few and far between. You might argue we'll se more Shakespeares than ever before. Bah, we'll only see the rise of the hack writer, like a deadly algal bloom in the red sargasso sea, choking everything.

There are already quite a number of vanity presses, or micropresses as you call them. Some provide okay work, others are disreputible. Those services don't provide what the big publishing houses can�editors. Most great writers actually work closely with an editor to hone and focus a work. Editors filter out the crap writers, nurture growing talents, and help polish the brilliant writers.

Why would publishers want to compete with google and ebay? That is wholly unclear.

Tom Clancy is not the only 'war writer', but garners a great deal of attention. Let's use him as an example of a popular novelist who makes wads of cash for the publishers. What he provides is a sure hit, an almost guaranteed revenue stream, which allows publisher to take in rising talent and foster their development. It allows publishers to take chances.

You also take of the economics, reducing costs. Have you heard of used book stores? The publishing industries, writers, and readers enjoy them because you can find lost or treasured works inexpensively. And I'll go one step further, and tell you how to acess them for free, at no cost to readers (and not the internet because even it has costs�such as ISP fees). Go to the library.