I very much agree with this blog post

[K Sawyer Paul]

Zoe Winters is a little tired of cynicism when it comes to self-pub..., and I agree with her entirely. The publishing world has changed entirely, and in most cases for the benefit of writers who may or may not have the patience/wherewithal to jump through the dozens of hoops one has to conquer in order to publish a book. Agent queries, publisher studying, market analysis, etc etc, are all part of the "traditional" way to go about publishing a book. These things have very little to do with writing a book. I'm all for the coming years, where the idea of printing out one or two copies of your book, and having the ebook available online, is considered published. I'm all for the idea that some plutocrat has no say whether your work is available to the masses or not. Books are becoming more and more like the independent art industry, where anyone can have a chance at success, and don't let anyone tell you this isn't a ground-breaking, game-leveling change for the better.

[K Sawyer Paul]

The web in 1995 was an ugly place. Archive.org's wayback machine will tell you that much.

If there's one thing I really, really want to get across is that educated, people-empowered change is always good, and corporate-approved, capitalistic change is at least sometimes good. Change in tech, in viewing products and production cycles, and in consumption of said product, is rarely bad. Technology is not cyclical (unlike what Liz Lemon's boyfriend says), and it's only getting better. The wall we all hit is control, as in, who controls this future? It's why I put up the video last week regarding publishing myths. People are frightened of losing control over their intellectual property, let alone their consumable pieces of entertainment (which is what we're more or less in the business of making). But it's okay, because as you've pointed out, our ability to steal back from the people who hope to hold onto our ideas and products is only going to get easier.