Tim Bray – Less Like Oration:

"The Net has had a twofold effect on short-form publishing: First, it’s cheap, verging on free. Second, it enjoys many routes to potentially large audiences. It’s the second that’s interesting. Until recently, you simply couldn’t find a large audience for your thoughts unless you had books on shelves in stores, and books had to be a couple of hundred pages long (usually more) to get on shelves in stores. This resulted, among other things, in many unnecessarily thick books."