The important goal of "widespread knowledge for all" is what matters, and matters an order of magnitude more than "believing in and preserving the particular way we do it now."

So, I don't care if piracy can't do what you mention. That may be a good thing -- I'm especially glad you mentioned publishers, who I'm not certain deserve to exist any longer. I personally don't think they do. Before, they did two useful things; distribution and curation. There was no other way to do that then.

They are absolutely not needed to do those things now, on a fundamental level, so -- evolve or die, I don't much care either way.