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Re. buzzwords, I'm guessing the editor is referring to a quote from the new CEO, Guy Vidra:

Mr. Vidra said in a memo to the staff on Thursday that he wanted to reimagine the publication “as a vertically integrated digital media company.”

Vidra also wrote,

As we restructure The New Republic, we will be making significant investments in creating a more effective and efficient newsroom as well as improved products across all platforms. This will require a recalibration of our resources in order to deliver the best product possible. In order to do so, we’ve made the decision to reduce the frequency of our print publication from 20 to 10 issues a year and will be making improvements to the magazine itself.

Given the frequency reduction, we will also be making some changes to staff structure.

That probably didn't go over too well, either.

Re. buzzwords, I'm guessing the editor is referring to a quote from the new CEO, Guy Vidra:

Mr. Vidra said in a memo to the staff on Thursday that he wanted to reimagine the publication “as a vertically integrated digital media company.”

Vidra also wrote,

As we restructure The New Republic, we will be making significant investments in creating a more effective and efficient newsroom as well as improved products across all platforms. This will require a recalibration of our resources in order to deliver the best product possible. In order to do so, we’ve made the decision to reduce the frequency of our print publication from 20 to 10 issues a year and will be making improvements to the magazine itself.

Given the frequency reduction, we will also be making some changes to staff structure.

That probably didn't go over too well, either.

Not buying it without some sort of citation.

http://www.salon.com/2014/04/0... http://qz.com/127861/its-time-... http://usatoday30.usatoday.com... http://fortune.com/2013/09/20/... http://www.mhpbooks.com/indepe... Those were just the first few results from a simple google search. Why is it that every time someone asks for a citation, the "proof" is the first hit from a simple google search? In this case: "number of bookstores in the USA".

Hrrm. Pretty much all only deal with what seems to be opportunistic growth after the fall of Borders since 2009, and based on the same American Booksellers Association data. Assuming these numbers reflect the reality and are a constant percentage of all total bookstores in the USA, it still only deals with a recent phenominon with obvious cause, and even then "The current total is less than half the 1990s peak of around 4,000." Although amounts vary, everything else I've seen says the same thing, the number of bookstores is going down.

Not buying it without some sort of citation.

http://www.salon.com/2014/04/0...
http://qz.com/127861/its-time-...
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com...
http://fortune.com/2013/09/20/...
http://www.mhpbooks.com/indepe...

Those were just the first few results from a simple google search. Why is it that every time someone asks for a citation, the "proof" is the first hit from a simple google search? In this case: "number of bookstores in the USA".

That's quite amusing since Amazon also impose a most favoured nation clause on their suppliers. That makes it quite quite hard to make them out to be the victim here.

Worse, Amazon pay a percentage of ebook sales to authors. But Amazon themselves set the price. And of they decide it's zero, they are giving the ebook out to customers without the author receiving a penny.
http://www.mhpbooks.com/amazon...

You were saying?

Netflix and gamefly are rental companies. As far as I know, they have nothing to do with the big media companies. In fact, I seem to recall a news story about how hollywood tries to block netflix from getting movies. Then again, maybe I was getting them mixed up with some of the vending machine companies (I am certain RedBox was one which had to have people go out in disguise, just so they could buy the DVDs they needed.)

These two stories don't seem to be it? Why Netflix Won't Be the HBO of the 21st Century. / Delayed rentals of new DVD releases is possible.

Under the situation the poster proposed (game companies keeping the program on their servers and just streaming video), Netflix / Gamefly, Walmart and their kind would be edged out, allowing the media companies to charge whatever they want.

Incidentally, what you're describing here is the book market: in English, virtually everything published since 1800 is still readable. Granted, most 19th Century books aren't of much interest to anyone, but a few are, and many, many used copies of books wander about the globe. (Gabriel Zaid wrote some about the literary plenitude/plethora in So Many Books: Reading and Publishing in an Age of Abundance, which I describe in the post at the link).

You can see more on the subject at the bottom of this post, which links here:

Exact data on how the used book market is eroding the market for new books is hard to come by but the consensus is -- it ain't helping.

The Wall Street Journal predicted in 2005: "While the market's size is still modest -- about $600 million, or 2.8% of the $21 billion that readers spent on consumer books in 2004 -- it is growing at 25% annually. Jeff Hayes, group director for InfoTrends Research Group, suggests that it could reach $2.25 billion in U.S. sales by 2010, or 9.4% of a projected $23.9 billion in consumer book sales."

Amazon, Abe Books, and the like make buying and selling used books easier than ever. Many good books have been released and are still readable. The internet makes coordinating the exchange of them easy. Hence, part of the problem the publishing industry faces today: competition from its old stock. Computer games, welcome to the world of books.