> A masterpiece of literature won't do; a masterpiece might be misunderstood and recognized years after ones death.
It is pretty hard for me to believe that we may have such masterpieces appearing today in the times of Internet. Do you know how many short stories, books written by some God forsaken authors appear? Right, most of them are pretty bad, but if there are masterpieces they will just sink in the sea of mediocre and probably will be never revealed. Of course there could be exceptions but looking at how it goes, it is more possible to make good profit from bad book (I am tempted to mention one book about vampires now...) than to see a masterpiece recognised after years. Not today. Sadly.
So I do agree that opinion of someone who doesn't pay for books is irrelevant, unless it is some quite important and/or recognised person.