[tygorius]

Well, by that logic the record studios were proxies for musicians. Sorry, not buying that argument.

If I were Stross I'd certainly be peeved at the loss of access to customers and, by extension, income. Especially if I were obligated by contract to stay with a publisher on the outs with Amazon. But arguing that Amazon's endgame is to put him out of business seems a stretch. We're still in the early stages of the ebook publishing disruption and I suspect that as with music, direct commercial channels between producers and consumers is the future.