I wouldn't call it "classy", it's a public relations ploy, meant to turn public opinion in Amazon's favor.
They may be doing it for cynical reasons, but I still like it.
Why do we need these scummy publishers anyways? Good riddance.
If they manage to force publishers out of the picture, they will force writers to reduce their income as far as they can push it. Which in a world without publishers is very, very far.
By the way, you look like an Amazon shill, not providing any argument for your position and appealing to emotion (scummy publishers die!)
This seems an odd statement to me. It implies that publishers pay authors well only because publishers are inherently nice guys. Isn't it more likely that publishers pay authors well because authors deliver the goods, and would not otherwise?
If Amazon was the publisher, why wouldn't Amazon also pay a bestselling author well in order to entice that author to produce more/better books, which Amazon can make more money off of?