From RPGNet: Greg Stolze on How much money should Industry types make?. His vision is a bit negative on the traditional gaming / distribution model, but he’s upbeat on how gaming as a hobby will endure and remake itself. He outlines a 5-step process, and here’s step 2:
2) Mass FLGS extinction. Some of them get hit by the asteroid of “we have terrible customer service and a desperately fragmented consumer base” while some evolve into birds by ditching RPGs and concentrating on TCGs, minis, DVDs and computer games.
I will take any and all reports of industry-death with several grains of salt! But Greg has shown to be firmly interested in trying alternate distribution methods, as his frequent use of the Ransom Model.