Copyright and future. How to "evaluate" the work of the writer?

Some time ago, my friends and itshniki had a question that was discussed earlier in Habré regarding copyrights for musicians, writers, and other creative figures. In particular, we are interested in the fate of writers. Now there are more and more readers who can read e-books, they are quite common and accessible. The need to hold a real book in your hands, inhale the smell of paper pages and settle down with it, compact and comfortable, will disappear and will soon disappear completely. Previously, I myself was an opponent to read from a laptop, but now I am more and more attracted by the opportunity to get into a comfortable chair with an iPad or something similar in the evening and dive into reading. And here, after discussing all the charms of electronic reading rooms and books, the question arose what would happen to the writers and their remuneration for work, if their work can be downloaded for free on torrents or in any other places. And why now pay for creativity, if it is so convenient to download a book, without worrying about the author’s remuneration.

If earlier a writer came to a publishing house, gave his manuscripts, and he was paid a fee for a book and he also received interest on the sale of books, how will it be now? After some thought, we came up with several options:

1. Electronic analogue of publishers.
The writer sends a book to the e-mail, receives a small fee, and his book is published on the e-publishing site. Then users download it for money.
But then immediately there was one big “but” - with the development of torrents - someone alone would buy the book, download it and put it on the torrent. It is not profitable for publishers to pay a fee to a writer if there is no profit from his book. Option disappears
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2. Donations.
Then immediately came to mind analog with Habr. If we like the article, we add it and add our vote to the karma of the author of the article. So here - we read the author - I like the piece, well, we don’t feel sorry for throwing 2-3 bucks to him. Of course, not everyone will be so responsible, but still there will be admirers of talent and the book will earn a certain authority among readers. So some writers have already done - they did not publish books offline, but immediately placed them on their websites and asked for downloads either to throw a certain small amount, or how much they did not mind. Moreover, there were cases of earnings, more than they received offline.
The main disadvantage of this option is, again, the influence of torrents, I think very few who downloaded movies or books really wanted to pay them at least something as a reward, and a question of people's consciousness and respect for creativity. The option is also non-optimal.

Having discussed further, we dispersed, without finding answers to our thoughts. But the question remains. How will art develop if it cannot be “appreciated”? And how to write or create in the future, if you stop paying a decent fee for it.