What "Publishing Industry"?

Sometimes, I read other people's insights on this strange new world we fiction writers find ourselves in and the LED bulb goes on:

The mental model we share of this thing we call the publishing industry is no longer useful. Most of us think of the publishing industry’s product as “books”. That’s like thinking that Amazon sells two products, bits and cardboard boxes. Amazon ships stuff in cardboard boxes. It’s what’s inside the box that you are buying. Likewise, it’s the information contained in the bits that you are buying when you buy a digital product from Amazon.

You can read the rest of fellow Houstonian John Cavnar-Johnson's article at Digital Book World.