The issue is much broader than just books and started far earlier than Hearst.
The issue is quality versus availability. And started with capitalism with the Rockwell's, the Henry Ford's and the PT Barum's of the world.
On one end with quality this guy is not wrong. Quality costs. We could make things last at several life times. Just look at the heirloom's. Things that last generations after generations.
My great grandfathers house was a thousand years old in Europe. Today a house barely lasts a lifetime if that long.
It's the same story with books. Quality versus availability is the factor in this society. On the quality end only the very wealthy can afford the best. On the availability end the poor need to survive.
So what good is a book that costs thousands of dollars, when the poor can't afford it?
Now we are getting into the digital age. Where even the poor can afford free information. Digital records don't degrade at all. Yet it's cheap and affordable for everyone.
The wealthy don't like this however. So they seed disinformation in everything. Or attempt to make a profit by collecting information of the users of that information.
This last is even done on copywrites and trademarks. Then suing for copywrited information.
The capitalism is in everything now. And it needs to stop soon.
