In the past, it made sense to have a huge infrastructure for publishing, because the risk of publication was so high. To publish a book required a minimum of tens of thousands of dollars, to be recouped by selling enough copies to pay back the investment and then some. We must also take care that publishers aren't wiped out. They do far more than just vend books. They develop, enliven, enrich, and improve.
Centralized organization is often more efficient than alternative models.
Yet we must also remember that publishing is not exclusively a business. In short, I believe that our civilization ought to be able to do a lot better than reproducing the worst qualities of the current system. I also find it unlikely that e-books will become a monopoly container for content. Rather, they will become one of the many ways we use digital tools to read, watch, and investigate our world. E-books will fill a niche, along with cheap Internet machines, broadband Web access, autonomous search agents, cell phones, PalmPilots, universal personalized access to the Internet, and other communication methodologies crowding the horizon.