I didn't say this will happen, nor did I say it would necessarily be a good thing if it happened. I just said it might happen. Stross himself appears to agree that it might; see below.
> If people value Stross' work enough, they will pay.
And if they don't, they won't. More precisely, the more it costs to get Stross' work, the fewer people are likely to pay. Will there be enough at a higher cost (such as buying printed books or buying direct from the author) for Stross to make a living at it? Stross himself didn't seem too hopeful in his article; if you think otherwise, perhaps you should tell him, not me.
> I don't think it would be in Amazon's interest to encourage alternate channels by driving quality authors away.
I don't think Amazon cares about quality authors as such; I think they care about selling what the public has shown, by its buying choices, that it wants to buy. If the public wants to buy the work of quality authors, Amazon will sell it--and try to undercut everyone else's price. If the public wants trash, Amazon will sell that--and try to undercut everyone else's price.
> They probably also can not just sell any crap that calls itself a book, so they need good authors
Maybe, maybe not. See above. It's not Amazon that's ultimately deciding this; it's us, the readers.
> (assuming books are even significant revenue for them anyway).
I don't know about revenue, but I think it's quite possible that books, or at least e-books, might be a significant portion of their profits. They have distribution costs down extremely low for anything digital, and the prices in the Kindle store indicate to me that there could be quite a bit of margin there.
I didn't say this will happen, nor did I say it would necessarily be a good thing if it happened. I just said it might happen. Stross himself appears to agree that it might; see below.
> If people value Stross' work enough, they will pay.
And if they don't, they won't. More precisely, the more it costs to get Stross' work, the fewer people are likely to pay. Will there be enough at a higher cost (such as buying printed books or buying direct from the author) for Stross to make a living at it? Stross himself didn't seem too hopeful in his article; if you think otherwise, perhaps you should tell him, not me.
> I don't think it would be in Amazon's interest to encourage alternate channels by driving quality authors away.
I don't think Amazon cares about quality authors as such; I think they care about selling what the public has shown, by its buying choices, that it wants to buy. If the public wants to buy the work of quality authors, Amazon will sell it--and try to undercut everyone else's price. If the public wants trash, Amazon will sell that--and try to undercut everyone else's price.
> They probably also can not just sell any crap that calls itself a book, so they need good authors
Maybe, maybe not. See above. It's not Amazon that's ultimately deciding this; it's us, the readers.
> (assuming books are even significant revenue for them anyway).
I don't know about revenue, but I think it's quite possible that books, or at least e-books, might be a significant portion of their profits. They have distribution costs down extremely low for anything digital, and the prices in the Kindle store indicate to me that there could be quite a bit of margin there.