Holy Cow. I can't believe I missed this dogfight. It gave me flashbacks to every other microcultural struggle I've witnessed during my lifetime: hardcore Hollywood punks vs. hardcore OC punks, lesbian separatists versus pro-sex lesbians, deconstructionists versus postmarxists, grey matter bloggers versus movable type bloggers, etc., etc., etc. It reminds me of a quote I once heard attributed to Rita Mae Brown's mother regarding lesbian disputes over whether it's feminist to shave: "People who are seriously engaged in fighting over armpit hair obviously don't care about power" (paraphrase).

Of course, some may not agree that this is argument is microcultural. As Dirk Deppey says, speaking of Neilalien's reputed position:

The big problem I have with this theory is that it sacrifices long-term growth and stability for short-term satisfaction and self-absorption.

Long-term growth and stability are industry values, while satisfaction--short term or otherwise--and self-absorption are goods that refer to the individual consumer or reader. I don't think the set-up is fair, exactly. But then again, I am a reader, not a publisher. As such, I am not particularly concerned with the economic health of the comics industry, or the book industry, or the record industry, or any of the other industries that provide me with "satisfaction." It may be "self-absorbed," but propping up capitalism is not on my short-list of to-dos.