The publishing industry was and is precisely that — an industry: a commercial, for-profit endeavor. Publishers did not control the printing presses (the pressmen did that and were represented by a union), but used offset lithography because that was the technology available at the time, regardless of distribution challenges and lack of broader interactivity.
The publishing industry is not destroying public libraries. In fact, the government is doing a far better job of that than the publishing industry ever could. Legislative paralysis, suckled by septuagenarians who do not fully comprehend new technologies, is the culprit of your complaints (and maybe capitalism). The Internet disintermediates the need for most old-world distribution systems. Gatekeepers are slowly dissolving, but any beast of burden (like the publishing industry) is going to kick and claw to remain relevant and maintain power. That’s just the way the world works so add mercantilism to your complaint, too. So less of a detriment, and more of an eclectic pet you shouldn't water or feed after midnight.
(SIDE NOTE: That said, let’s not forget that any current arguments against censorship are mostly silly distractions. The right to free speech is not equivalent to the right to publish. Very different dynamics.)
As technology changes the nature of how we communicate (since, technically, language is technology, only phonetically fuzzier), human lives are upended by these changes. I wonder when we're going to start having conversations about solving those kinds of issues.
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Enshittification. It is inevitable.
An Alliteratively Courteous Counterpoint
The publishing industry was and is precisely that — an industry: a commercial, for-profit endeavor. Publishers did not control the printing presses (the pressmen did that and were represented by a union), but used offset lithography because that was the technology available at the time, regardless of distribution challenges and lack of broader interactivity. The publishing industry is not destroying public libraries. In fact, the government is doing a far better job of that than the publishing industry ever could. Legislative paralysis, suckled by septuagenarians who do not fully comprehend new technologies, is the culprit of your complaints (and maybe capitalism). The Internet disintermediates the need for most old-world distribution systems. Gatekeepers are slowly dissolving, but any beast of burden (like the publishing industry) is going to kick and claw to remain relevant and maintain power. That’s just the way the world works so add mercantilism to your complaint, too. So less of a detriment, and more of an eclectic pet you shouldn't water or feed after midnight. (SIDE NOTE: That said, let’s not forget that any current arguments against censorship are mostly silly distractions. The right to free speech is not equivalent to the right to publish. Very different dynamics.) As technology changes the nature of how we communicate (since, technically, language is technology, only phonetically fuzzier), human lives are upended by these changes. I wonder when we're going to start having conversations about solving those kinds of issues.