Possibly, but I doubt it. I would think that any company that failed to compensate the big-name-players in the hopes that they could save money by relying on a cadre of unknowns and small-potatoes-earners, is going to go under themselves. Not everybody - and more like 99.9% of all who try - will NOT become the next "50 Shades". If they're lucky, they'll make a few bucks and that'll be it. No publisher is going to survive on that kind of return, no matter how many offerings they make.
I think of it like actors, rather than writers. Just because there's zillions of folks who'd be happy to be in a movie as an extra, for nothing more than minimum wage or even for free, doesn't mean that Will Smith can't still negotiate a several million dollar package when he takes on a role. And just because there are hundreds of thousands of working actors who have to have a day job to make ends meet, doesn't mean that a name-actor can't still get a pretty sweet deal when signing on as a series regular. Nor would most production companies take the risk of relying solely on unknown, green actors to carry their company/project while trying to save money by going with name-actors and their increased cost. (The cheapness of reality TV not-withstanding. That's a whole different kettle of fish.) Similarly, an already published author brings name recognition and marketing clout to the table. That's still worth compensation, and still something that can be negotiated and haggled over from both sides.
What I bet it means is that the offering of "pro" fic gets smaller, is published less often and that it becomes even harder to break into than it's ever been. You'd have to be an already published author, with a proven track record and a string of successes behind you to even be considered and, in fact, the publishers may move to closing off submissions entirely. I.e. they might begin to approach certain authors to write for a TV-series spin off, rather than making submissions open to any who qualify. (The Stargate series of novels is like this. They don't accept manuscripts and you can't even query them unless you've already published a novel or two or ten.) That way, the risk they take on in putting money behind marketing efforts is minimized.
No, I think it's more likely that publishers are looking at the possibility of tapping into a new revenue stream if they offer fan fiction, because it's a ready-made "
long]/url] [url=http://google.about.com/od/googleforbusiness/f/longtailfaq.htm]tail" of niche material - one that's also firmly ensconced in Internet culture and not dependent on the physical bookstore space that's rapidly disappearing. (For example, Penguin books was hit hard with the demise of Borders bookstores.) Long tail niche business models are risky too, since there's so very little earned on each unit - you need a LOT of unique offerings to make it work. But that uniqueness defines fan fiction.
