POD is looked on as the lower end of publishing – no great novel will ever come from it it is for pulp market paperbacks and the convenience and money saving strategy of the large publishing houses, nothing more. I have a friend who published with Amazon and he told me his new novel retails at £16 at which ridiculous price he makes 58p (about 70c for my American readers. Even I think that is an overpriced book and half to a third of what he should be making. Hardly lower end in price terms.
In content they have a point, there is a lot of terrible books out there with AI illustrations and poorly edited work. But if the well known writers did POD for their books and not Penguin or others they would be doubling their income. Pity they can’t see that.