I understand Amazon wanting some quality control. I understand Amazon looking for a "better" model for funding self-published work. Heralding 50 Shades of Grey as a triumph of anything other than discovering that people are more than willing to buy sex is the wrong argument.

I think that the funding model has possibility. No one writes to get rich. Writers write because of the passion for crafting story. Amazon has the means to change the funding model...I say let them. They will get burned. Someone will figure out how to make cash by hacking Kindle hardware and Amazon will bleed for it.

The truth is that traditional publishing doesn't protect nuance or favor art any more than Amazon does. They want to make more. Books of caliber don't make more money necessarily. Popular books do. It will be a cold day in hell when someone finally convinces me that Harry Potter was anything other than derivative pap...but the fact is that every publisher wishes that it was in their catalog. But that derivative pap was entertainment. It was escape. It was something that caught fire with the mass market.

Self publishing will make the model different. Better? Worse? Who knows until we try, I for one welcome our new benevolent overlords and look forward to hacking a "page turner" that will make me rich.