I recently read an article (can't find it, but similar to this: https://blog.reedsy.com/how-much-do-authors-make/) which pointed out that the publishing industry is very similar to Venture Capital where 1 hit pays for a ton of the other books that sell at most 1000s of copies.

So, if you make books available for free, with unlimited copies, the publisher never gets their advance back, never funds the next hit, etc, etc, etc.

I'm all for freedom for information, but unless we can come up with a distribution model that ensures authors actually get paid... I've gotta side with the publishers here. They gotta pay the authors somehow.