The rise of Indie Publishing

It seems that lately Indie publishing has become all the rage.  Everyone's talking about it and amazon's kindle store is exploding with new authors everyday.  People still say that indie publishing poses no threat to traditional houses but the evidence can't be overlooked.  I won't say it's a threat but a definite shift in the paradigm.  It's similar to the change experienced in the music industry with artists putting out their own records and the rise of the mp3.  The major difference is authors have much more control and far greater access to the profits.  During the revolt in the recording industry many artists decided to go the route of producing their own records and selling them out of their trunk.  When they were finally approached by a record company they had much more leverage.  The downside was they weren't able to reach a large audience very easily and they had to bear all the costs of producing the cd's.  The indie publishing landscape is different in that authors have companies like Amazon and Barnes & Noble and with the rise of ereaders they are able to reach a world wide audience with little to no upfront costs.  So while this may not be the death of traditional publishing it certainly is a change.