Matt Yglesias

oes publishing matter? Of course it does. That's one reason the dispute between Amazon.com and Hachette is so significant, because it has broader implications for the ways books are released and sold.

Indeed, one of the finest aspects of the current publishing landscape is that, when it's working, things feed back into the center, and there is (or should be) room for all. This is what I don't understand about Amazon's defenders, many of who are also detractors of traditional publishing

Yglesias's piece is mostly a rehash of familiar arguments that often come from people who occupy a similar position to Yglesias's: They are, broadly speaking, outsiders to the publishing world and more closely associated with the broader fields of business, economics, and technology. They appear to believe their outsider status allows them to see more clearly how broken publishing is; they're not captive minds. The insiders tend to respond that the outsiders could stand to be less ignorant of the industry they're criticizing. This fight tends to devolve quickly. 

The Aura HD is a great bit of hardware, but that's not where the battle of ereaders is being fought.

Kobo is in town for the London Book Fair, and used the opportunity to launch its new ereader. The tech itself is fancy: described by the company as being designed from the ground up for "passionate" readers, it's got an ultra-high resolution screen (slightly sharper than an iPad 4's, though at that stage, who's counting?), sharp industrial design, and a speedy processor that makes it feel faster than any e-ink reader I've used.