Franky I find it difficult to feel sorry for anyone. I appreciate that Stross finds his work extremely important and worthy of being sold. I think most people feel that way about their work, particularly if it's creative in nature. I also agree that Amazon is being the equivalent of a petty child, and seeing this play out so publicly makes me question the professionalism of the organization as a whole.

But at the end of the day, let's make no mistake: Stross is essentially upset because he won't be able to make money off of what he wants to do as easily as he would like. He believes his and other authors' livelihood is threatened by this move, though interestingly cites no evidence to demonstrate that being the case.

To that I say: so what? Amazon is not beholden nor subservient to its vendors. As Stross says, he could just as well self-publish but doesn't because he doesn't want to. I'm not really sure what his appeal to emotion with texts being a "cultural medium" has anything to do with whether or not Amazon should be forced to sell his product on his behalf. If his book is really in as high demand as he seems to think it is, then people will seek it out elsewhere. I wish him all the best simply because I think a creator deserves to get as much from his/her work as possible, but I'm just not convinced having The Man force Amazon to sell his product and others is either right or necessary. I see very little difference between refusing to sell products from a company that, for example, engages in morally corrupt practices (e.g., a manufacturer that places no value on workers' rights and kills workers every day in manufacturing accidents) and a company that did something you don't like (e.g., publishing a book whose content you disagree with). Arguing in this case that The Man should come enforce what Stross believes is his right to be represented in the Amazon storefront takes away the ability of companies to sell what they want to sell under the conditions that they want to. Stross was not forced to sell his book on Amazon nor publish with Hachette. Throwing a fit because he doesn't like the consequences of those decisions isn't much more impressive to me than Amazon's fit in the first place.

I'm optimistic though, one of the many cool things Internet does is reduce the cost of distribution, especially for digital goods. I could imagine digital marketplaces getting popular where writers can publish their eBooks and keep almost all of the profit. It's not nearly as convenient as Kindle's magic whispersync thing but it's also not that hard to put third-party eBooks on the Kindle either.