ARCs is a contemporary issue combining themes of cyncism and uncontrollable black commerce. And the combination of art and business.

Don't these themes repeatedly feature in WG's works?

They do. I quite agree that WG includes many of the themes brought out by ARCs in his work. What does the the ARC in turn do for his work? To what extent can we even measure the sale of an ARC on Ebay to increased dissemination of the book itself once it's released?

It's all getting very fluid these days. Traditional marketing portals are morphing and comingling as new ones are birthed from the churning meme-sea which promotes them.

ARC's are just ARC's. Why complicate it? I bought mine because I wanted to read SC before anyone else. I did. That's all. If you want to spend all that cash on one, why not?