Laura Miller, a senior writer for Salon makes some good points in this article.
The para that really spoke to me is “…but the one thing they definitely won’t learn is how their work will be read once it appears in the outside world. There, it will most likely be entirely ignored. There, even close friends will have to be wheedled into giving it a shot. Traditional publication is an improbability that, if achieved, will almost certainly not result in the reviews or sales the author fantasizes about. Most books get lost in the deluge published every week. Forget about the world hating your book — chances are it won’t even notice it.”
That is the struggle fiction writers go through every day.