As the world changes, it's perfectly normal that people/company/organisation/language/laws/product/... will become irrelevant. The real crime is not adapting and artificially insisting on remaining relevant. The record companies have been doing that for years, the book publishers as well and at a later time, the movie studios will to. The only reason it hasn't happened yet to the movie studios is the relatively high budget of movies as opposed to the one of books and music.
That being said, the internet is providing a direct pathway from the authors to the reader. Amazon is a publisher in this picture but it is selling directly to the reader so there one (or more) person to feed down the line. Everybody wins except the superfluous people who are not relevant and became greedy to compensate for a loss of revenues instead of adapting. Apple and Google will probably do the same and some artist/writers will try to sell directly to listeners/readers. It's all good and I'm alright with that.