Those Who Walked Away From Self-Publishing

Recently I was surprised to read claims that people are still self-publishing millions of books annually--precisely because self-publishing has proven such a disappointment. I expected that, after their initial experience the discouraged, exhausted--and often poorer--survivors of the marketplace slaughter tended to give up, while their experience discouraged others from going where they had gone before, all the more in as the "revolution" some hoped for never happened, was indeed cut off at the roots by the stagnation of the e-book and e-book reader's proliferation, the decline of book blogging and the ever more controlled nature of the Internet narrowing their publicity options, and of course, the unflagging hostility of the elitist bullies keeping the Gates of Literature so that folks like the Kardashians can become Authors but they can't (as said bullies tell them that they are "unworthy," when really the issue is that the Kardashians are famous but they are not, the insult as dishonest as it is cruel). And indeed, my admittedly unscientific impressions of such authors' pages on Amazon is that after putting out a few books, and (to go by sales rankings, ratings, reviews) not gotten much attention, their output has trailed off.

Is it possible that, in spite of all the disappointment, people have stuck to it? Even become more inclined to it?

There are some possibilities here--the most obvious of which is the extreme strength of the determination of a great many people to become authors, to make a living writing full-time in spite of the poor odds and the ever-abundant discouragement. Still, it seems to me that there is something to be explained here--and another reminder that no one has even begun to properly tell the story of self-publishing in these times.